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A RUSSIAN JOURNEY 



BY 



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EDNA DEAN PROCTOR 



OTitl^ 31llu0tration0 



REVISED EDITION, WITH PRELUDE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

^z fiiVier^ibe threes, Cambribo^ 

1899 



38214 



Copyright, 1871, 1890, and 1899, 
By EDNA DEAN PROCTOR. 

All rights reserved. 
rWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




R 



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Ui 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 






CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Prelude vii 

St. FcTEBSBUBa ...••••• 1 

St. Isaac's and the Crown Jswxls • • • • 13 

To Moscow 25 

The Shrines of Moscow 33 

Moscow BEYOND THE KbEMLIN 47 

Moscow Bells • • • 61 

Troitsa Monasteby .•••••«. b9 

The Fair of Nijni 85 

Asia at JSijni 97 

KAZiN ....•••••• Ill 

The Volga, to Samara. • • • • • • .125 

A Gypsy Encampment 141 

The Empire of the East • • . • . .153 

The Volga, to Kamyschin 163 

Kalmucks and Moravians . • • • . .179 

The Cossack Country 195 

Rostoff and the Lower Don • . • • . 209 

The Azoff and Euxine Seas 221 

Yalta and the Crimean Tartars . • • .231 
The Crimean Coast and Alupka • • • 241 



iv CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

Baidab Gate and Valley •••••, 253 

Sevastopol 261 

Odessa ...••••«•, 269 

OvEB THE Steppe to Kichinbfp . • • • , 281 

KiCHINEFF to BeLZI 291 

The Frontieb ••».,,•• 803 

The Czab . • 319 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Marshes of the North .... Frontispiece. 

Nicholas Bridge and the Neva .... 6 

The Alexander Column 10 

St. Isaac's Cathedral 18 

Peasants of the Province of St. Petersburg . . 30 

Cathedral of the Assumption 38 

Tower of John the Great 64 

Philaret, late Metropolitan of Moscow and Archi- 
mandrite of Troitsa .74 

A Mendicant bO 

Ivan and Nadia 94 

Odr Lady of Kazan . . . . . . , 118 

Peasant Cabins 128 

Gypsy Fortune Teller • 148 

Ice-Boat of the Volga 170 

A Kalmuck Encampment 186 

A Cossack Boy 214 

A Young Circassian 228 

Tartar Boys 2>6 

Sevastopol 2G4 

Windmill of the Grain Kegion .... 294 

Peasant of the Polish Border 306 

Alexander II. ... ..*... 318 



PRELUDE. 



RUSSIA. 

[1890.] 

What 1 shall a hundred millions 

Be dumb at the word of one ? — 
The light of their day be darkened 

While above them shines the sun ? 
Shall the flower of the Russian people, 

The tender, lofty souls, 
Through exile, torture, madness. 

But swell the martyrs' rolls? 

Rise in your ancient grandeur, 

O race of love and fire. 
And flame till ice and rock shall melt 

In the blast of your holy ire! 
Till the very stars shall fight for you, 

And all the winds that blow 
Shall swell your cry for Liberty, 

Shall chant your speechless woe. 



vm RUSSIA. 

Let the sword rest in its scabbard ! 

Your wrongs shall be the blade 
To cleave the bonds that have bound you 

And win the world to aid. 
In the might of Slavic manhood, 

In the power of God on high, 
Claim and defend your birthright ! — 

And the despot's rule shall die. 

TT is more than twenty years since the journey 
was made of which these pages are a record. 
Then, in spite of fears and reactions, Russia was 
still flushed with joy and hope from the Emanci- 
pation of the serfs, and her friends, everywhere, be- 
lieved a better day had dawned for her. Through 
this rosy glow I looked at the future of Czar and 
people. 

The Emancipation of the serfs was a great and 
daring reform, one which will keep the name of 
Alexander II. forever illustrious among the Czars ; 
but a reform so inevitable that it could not ^have 
been long delayed. Yet it was onl}'^ the first step 
towards the goal of rounded, individual manhood 
to which the whole human race is tending. To 
pause there, was like lingering upon the chord of 
the seventh while the ear cries imperiously for the 



RUSSIA, IX 

octave ; like making foundation and crypt strong 
and spacious, but never rearing, thereupon, the 
noble cathedral vrith its crowning spire ; nay, like 
staying the sun at dawn, with earth longing for 
the full glory of his beams. 

The peasants compose by far the largest part 
of the population of Russia, and, with the officials, 
(drawn from the higher ranks,) the army, and the 
police, make up the nation. In order that this 
great body of liberated men might appreciate the 
blessings of freedom and of ownership of land, and 
be able to use them, they needed education, and 
the most helpful measures which the combined 
wisdom of the country could devise. But with 
such limited bounty ; — their allotments of land 
proving small in proportion to the taxes imposed 
— such utterly inadequate provisions ; and with 
their lack of self-reliance and enterprise, due to 
the irresponsible, careless ways of servitude ; many 
have questioned, in their ignorance and disap- 
pointment and helplessness, whether the old days 
were not, after all, better than the new. Eman- 
cipation freed them from the dominion of their 
masters ; but they are still the creatures of the 
Government, still almost voiceless in its coun- 



X RUSSIA. 

cils, still hampered on every side by restrictions 
and penalties which nothing but mighty, concerted 
action on their part could enable them ever to 
throw off. And when it is remembered that 
every village is under the surveillance of the po- 
lice, and that the whole force of the Empire can 
be employed to search out offenders and put down 
insurrections, the difficulty of such action, how- 
ever wisely and justly attempted, will be under- 
stood. But in this age, when liberty is in the 
air, and the problem of government by the peo- 
ple and for the people has been triumphantly 
solved, it will be as impossible for the great Rus- 
sian nation to be long held in such bondage, as it 
would be to keep the majestic current of the Volga 
prisoned in ice, and the trees upon its banks bare 
of leaves, when winds blow soft from the south 
and the sun shines on forest and stream with the 
warmth and splendor of June. 

Of all Aryan races, the Russian Slavs, with their 
frankness, their simplicity, their gentle endurance, 
and yet their force, their imagination, their quick, 
intense sympathy, their unbounded power of losing 
themselves in a feeling, an idea ; their capacity 
for self-sacrifice, their pliancy, their mysticism, 



RUSSIA. XI 

their ardent faith, — seem to possess most of what 
we may fancy were the characteristics of the 
primitive people in the highlands of Asia. In- 
deed, to their patriarchal bias, their tendency to 
regard themselves as children and the Czar as 
a father who wishes them nothing but good, must 
in a great measure be ascribed their long submis- 
sion to despotic rule ; for, as between man and 
man, democracy and a sense of brotherhood are 
strong in their blood. No just estimate of them 
can be made without considering that, since the 
dawn of their history, they have been the bulwark 
of Europe against Asia. While the Western na- 
tions were free to devote themselves to their own 
affairs, or to wars with their equally civilized 
neighbors, Russia was invaded by hordes of fierce 
Pagan and Mohammedan Mongols and Tartars, 
led now and again by some of the ablest generals 
and administrators the world has known ; her 
towns pillaged and burned, her fields wasted, her 
inhabitants slaughtered, or driven into slavery 
more cruel than death. For centuries she was 
the vassal of the Khans ; her Princes humble ser- 
vitors at Tartar camp and court, — obliged to 
journey even as far as the Amoor to pay tribute 



xii RUSSIA. 

and have tlie right to their principalities con- 
firmed. The Crescent beneath the Cross, on the 
domes of Russian churches and monasteries, is 
to-day a conspicuous memento of the dreadful 
struggle and the final victory. 

This savage strife, this long oppression by such 
hated foes, could not fail to deeply affect the na- 
tional character, — to blend ferocity with force, 
cunning and dissimulation with wisdom and pru- 
dence, the servile ways of the Asiatic with the 
simple frankness of the Slav. And when the 
Khans were at last overthrown, and the Russian 
states consolidated into an empire, the Czars 
copied this despotic rule, and made the people 
mere instruments of their will. But, for enlight- 
ened men, the day of Khans and autocrats has 
passed, never to return. To the fact that the 
Emperor will not see this, and give the people 
their proper share in the government, thus secur- 
ing more justice and good faith and honesty in 
every branch of the administration, the terrible 
events of recent years are due. And utterly mis- 
guided and insane as some of the defenders of 
liberty have been, their patriotic devotion, their 
heroic deaths, will not be in vain. The whole in- 



RUSSIA, xiii 

telligent world is hastening to be free. The ages 
of the future belong everywhere to the people ; 
and in Russia, this bitter conflict, however pro- 
tracted, can only end in their triumph. 

With the approach of summer, the woods and 
steppes of Russia burst into sudden green and 
beauty. The wind sings through the firs, and 
sways the young leaves of the birches and lindens, 
wafting their delicate perfume to the fields. The 
hum of bees fills the air. The cooing of doves 
is heard in the hamlets. The grassy sea of 
the steppes is bright with flowers, — scarlet pop- 
pies, yellow broom, gay tulips, brilliant cockles, 
purple larkspur — countless blooms that give their 
rich tints to the day, and exhale their fragrance 
with the evening dews; while the lark, soaring 
from the grass, and the nightingale warbling in 
the thicket, thrill dawn and moonlight with their 
delicious melody. The great plains bask in the 
sun, and the wind, that has stolen from the Altai 
and the Oural, sways the green expanse in waves 
of light and shade, to the far horizon. So soft ! 
so fair ! but, alas, so fleeting ! Soon the flow- 
ers wither ; the grass grows brown and sere. 
Clouds obscure the sun ; mists veil the distance ; 



XIV RUSSIA, 

the days rise chill ; and while song and the sweet 
breath of summer seem hardly to have left the 
air, fierce blasts sweep down from the Pole, cov- 
ering the once green and glowing sea with a pall 
of snow ; and from the bare and gloomy thickets 
come the rustling of the dead leaves, the creak- 
ing of the branches, and anon the howling of the 
wolves as they rage in their hunger, and gather 
to pursue and seize the passing traveler. The 
Russian nature, with favorable conditions, is like 
forest and steppe in summer, full of peace and 
grace and charm ; swayed by sympathy and feel- 
ing, as grass and bough by the passing breeze ; 
inclined to believe and love and trust, even as 
the steppe looks up confidingly, and reflects the 
smile or the sadness of the sky. But it has also 
the strength and terror of steppe and forest ; and 
under the winter of injustice and tyranny and 
cruelty, its impulses, its energies, its affections, 
become pitiless blasts and devouring wolves. 

God grant that a radical change may come in 
the affairs of this great nation, — come quietly, 
justly, nobly ; that the rights of the long-suffering 
people may be recognized; and that unbearable 
wrongs, and desperate assassinations, and Sibe- 



EUSSIA. XV 

rian horrors such as Mr. Kennan has so vividly- 
portrayed, may no longer shock the world ! And 
when it is Free Russia; when, under wise and 
liberal rule, the varied populations of this huge 
domain — one sixth of the earth's surface — can 
develop fully and naturally ; when the passionate 
patriotism, the philosophy, the poetry, the wit of 
the people, are no longer repressed or exiled or 
hidden in dungeons ; when the country's resources 
are more honestly applied for its advantage ; when 
education is open to all ; — what marvels may we 
not hope for, what inventive genius, what prac- 
tical skill, what scientific discovery, what music, 
what art, what literature, in these mingled races 
dowered with the gifts of Europe and Asia, — 
unique capacities which as yet they have hardly 
begun to use ! 

There is an old and beautiful belief in Russia 
that " Mother Earth " knows the secrets of the 
future, and that, if one in silence lays his ear 
reverently to the ground and listens, the events 
of days to come will be revealed. O Russian 
Earth ! art thou not weary of bringing forth 
children for destruction and woe, and for such 
despair that they yearn to be folded again in thine 



XVI RUSSIA. 

embrace ? Make thou a compact with the Celes- 
tial Powers; and when thy sons and daughters 
listen at thy breast, let them no longer hear the 
wails borne on Siberian winds, the moans from 
prison cells, the lamentations, the murmurs, the 
awful threats, of an oppressed and outraged peo- 
ple, but gladden their hearts with omens of joy, 
— with songs and thanksgivings, and the inspiring 
words of Liberty and Peace ! 



ST. PETERSBURG. 



ST. PETEESBURG. 



Seel From the Finland marshes there 
*Tis grand St. Isaac's rears in air, 

Column on column, that shining dome I 
And, just beyond its glorious swell, 
*Tis the slender spire of the Citadel 
Where great Czar Peter slumbers well 

All by the Neva's flood and foam, — 
That lifts its cross till the golden bars 
Gleam and burn with the midnight stars I 

rriHE gray waste of the Baltic ; a cold, cloudy 
sky and a wild wind blowing from the east. In 
the distance a colorless line, the flat, dreary shore, 
to which even the poor picturesqueness of Finland 
is denied, and where a few pale birches and sickly 
pines are all that unaided summer can coax from 
the wet and barren soil. Yet out of this bleak 
morass there began to rise spires and domes and 
columns, half revealed in the shifting light, and 
then, as the sun struggled through the clouds, mul» 



4 ST. PETERSBURG. 

tiplying and shining resplendent like an enchanted 
city evoked from the gloom of the wave. Was it 
Venice, fair and fascinating on the bosom of the 
Adriatic ? Was it Amsterdam, solid and secure by 
the Zuyder Zee ? 

The wonder grew. Tall ships and laden boats 
thronged about us ; great rows of stately houses 
lifted themselves to view ; crowded streets opened 
on every hand ; and while we were yet bewildered 
with this mingled poverty of nature and splendor 
of art, the steamer rounded into her dock upon the 
Neva, and amid drays and droskies and a noisy 
rabble of coachmen and porters, — some clad in 
sheep-skins, and all in loose, long wrappings, — we 
gained the wharf and knew that we were in the 
capital of the Czars I 



What would those earliest founders, the impas- 
sioned, beauty-loving race, that, wandering west- 
ward from the banks of the Euphrates, saw the 
plain of Damascus glowing in the Syrian sun, and 
pitched their tents upon its paradise of green, — 
what would they have said to the site of the City 
of the North ? — a swamp, a quaking bog, scarcely 



ST. PETERSBURG. 6 

above the level of the Baltic, almost within the 
Arctic Circle, frozen and snow-covered for five 
months of the jear, and subject, with the coming 
on of spring, to fearful inundations. No marvel 
is it that with bitter murmurings and regrets the 
first inhabitants took up their forced abode in its 
streets still reeking w^th marshy damps, and trem- 
bling beneath the unusual weight imposed upon the 
oozy soil. 

What is St. Petersburg to-day ? A city of more 
than half a million people ; covering thirty square 
miles ; with broad, regular streets and immense 
squares lined with lofty buildings ; the most signal 
triumph of human will over material obstacles that 
the later centuries have shown. Compared with the 
cities farther south, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and 
Christiania seem like overgrown villages. St. Pe- 
tersburg is peer of the proudest — the Paris of the 
Baltic — an imperial Muscovite Berlin. 

Yet it overwhelms rather than delights you. 
It is vast ; it is amazing ; but it is the domain of 
the Titans rather than of the Graces, and you look 
m vain for the charming and the picturesque. St. 
Isi^ac's Place and the open area in front of the 
Winter Palace need a grand marshaling of troops 



6 ST. PETERSBURG. 

or a holiday convocation of citizens to fill the void; 
and the finest street, the Nevski Prospekt, begin- 
ning at the Isaac Cathedral and terminating three 
miles away at the .Monastery of Alexander Nevski, 
calls for an unending procession to enliven its cen- 
tre and unite its northern and southern borders in 
one. For convenience on ceremonial occasions and 
for sanitary purposes this is well ; but for beauty 
give me rather Genoa with its narrow, winding, 
climbing streets, where you may shake hands with 
your neighbor at the opposite window and see above 
a line of gleaming blue which is the sky — even the 
covered, crowded ways of Cairo, where balcony and 
lattice break the formal lines, and the varying pan- 
orama below offers perpetual entertainment to the 
stranger. 

As to the architecture of the city, its churches 
and religious establishments have all that is Rus- 
sian. The rest of the buildings are mainly con- 
structed on classic models, and though often impos- 
ing from their colossal size and lavish decorations, 
yet appear incongruous under that leaden sky. 
The fine, smooth marbles of the Mediterranean pen- 
insula are fit for fashioning into graceful temples 
and lovely, rounded forms ; and nude and slightly 



ST. PETERSBURG. 7 

draped figures upholding roof and dome are natural 
and pleasing where the landscape is steeped in the 
warmth and splendor of a tropic sun ; but in this 
cold Russia why did they not rear of their dark 
Finland granite bold, irregular piles that would rise 
majestic from the marshy plains, and mould as 
caryatides and ornamental groups, Muscovites in 
their long sheep-skin coats, or Tartars clad in As- 
trakhan caps and belted caftans, or Samoiedes or 
Laplanders enveloped in furs ? Every land for its 
own I If the architecture of St. Petersburg were 
thus individual and appropriate, it would be as at- 
tractive as that of Athens or Rome. 

From the gallery of the dome of St. Isaac's Ca- 
thedral an excellent view is obtained of the city. 
About you it lies upon the dead level which, to the 
north, loses itself in the Baltic and the swamps of 
Finland ; and, to the south, in the great plain 
stretching with slight interruption to the Crimea. 
The uniformity of regular streets is relieved by the 
river and the canals ; by the trees which care has 
made to flourish in the unwonted soil ; by the pub- 
lic monuments ; by the tall fire-towers — conspicu- 
ous objects in every Russian city, with watchmen 
ready, day and night, to give the proper signals in 



8 ST. PETERSBURG. 

case of an alarm ; and, most of all, by the golden 
and azure domes of the many churches and monas- 
teries. The Neva, curbed by granite quays, rolls 
its clear, strong tide through the city from Lake 
Ladoga to the Gulf; and as you mark how sea and 
river dominate over the plain, you wonder at the 
magnificent boldness that planted the capital where 
it must perpetually defy wind and wave. 

That slender gilded spire piercing the sky like a 
needle, and surmounted by an angel upholding the 
cross at a height of nearly four hundred feet above 
the earth, rises from the Cathedral of St. Peter and 
St. Paul, for the last century and a half the mau- 
soleum of the royal family. Their white marble 
tombs, beginning with that of Peter the Great, are 
built up on the floor of the church, with a gilt cross 
resting upon the upper slab and an inscription traced 
upon the end; alike, save that on the corners of 
those of the sovereigns is blazoned the Imperial 
eagle — the double-headed Byzantine eagle brought 
to Moscow by Sophia, the Greek bride of Ivan the 
Great, and adopted by him as the emblem of Russia. 
The latest buried here was the eldest son and heir 
of the present Emperor, the Grand Duke Nicholas 
— the idol of his family and of the nation, and the 



ST. PETERSBURG. 9 

betrothed of the Princess Dagmar. Alas for earthly 
joy and glory ! Death spoke to the heir of all the 
Russias as to the meanest peasant of the realm ; 
and neither the soft clime of Italy, nor maiden's 
tender love, nor parent's yearning, nor an empire's 
devotion could avail ; but, at the word, he must depart 
to that sphere where the person of kings is unre- 
garded, and leave to his brother both bride and 
dominion ! The walls of this cathedral are covered 
with banners and keys of conquered armies "and 
cities, some of them lying even upon the tombs of 
the victors ; and flying echoes from martial fields 
mingle with the prayers the priests intone for the 
repose of the dead. 

The conspicuous building a little up the Nevski 
Prospekt is the cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, 
named in honor of an image of the Virgin found 
unharmed among the ashes of a conflagration in 
the old Tartar city of Kazan, on the Volga, and 
now set with gems of fabulous value, and placed in 
the screen of this church, while above it the name 
of God is traced with similar precious stones. The 
screen itself — the partition between the nave and 
the altar — is of silver plundered from the churches 
of Moscow by the French, and retaken by Cos* 



10 ST. PETERSBURG. 

sacks to be here consecrated anew. This church 
is St. Petersburg's offering for the defeat of Na- 
poleon, and to it the Imperial family repair for 
special thanksgivings. Here the grand proces- 
sion halted at the entry of the Princess Dagmar, 
and while the crowd was hushed, and the impatient 
horses pawed the ground, the royal party entered, 
and a service of gratitude was performed for her 
arrival. Here, five years ago, came the Emperor, 
first alone and afterwards with his family, to give 
thanks for his escape from death at the hands of 
the assassin, Karokozoff. 

At the end of the long avenue, that striking as- 
semblage of domes and towers, is the third holiest 
shrine in Russia — the Monastery of St. Alexan- 
der Nevski, founded by Peter the Great. Alex- 
ander was a Prince of the race of Rurik, and his 
title, Nevski, comes from the battle he won on the 
banks of the Neva over the Swedes. The present 
Emperor bears his name, and is supposed to be 
under his special care and protection, as each 
Russian is under that of the saint for whom he is 
called. In this monastery lies the canonized prince 
for Russia's adoration, encased in solid silver, with 
silver angels hovering about him blowing trumpets 



ST. PETERSBURG. 11 

of fame. Much wealth in the way of jewels and 
rare manuscripts is gathered here, and so holy is 
the place considered, that, in recompense for the 
payment of a large sum to the monastery, many of 
the highest families have their burial-places within 
its walls. 

Fronting the swift Neva, that huge pile half a 
mile in length with the handsome central spire, is 
the Admiralty, in which are the naval oiBces and 
schools. Beyond is the Winter Palace, the most 
spacious and splendid of the royal residences of 
Europe. That column in front is the Column of 
Alexander I., the largest monolith in the world ; 
yet in the vast square its grandeur is lost, and you 
must stand beneath it in order to appreciate its 
size. Rows upon rows of piles were driven into 
the ground for its foundation, and Turkish cannon 
were melted down 'to form the capital and the 
ornaments for its base. But the frost deals hardly 
with its Finland granite, and each winter cracks 
and cleavages are made which cement and patches 
carefully repair. Everywhere groups and lines of 
birch and linden trees break the monotony, and, 
suggesting a firm soil, make you forget the bottom* 
less bog which their deep roots penetrate ; while 



12 * ST. PETERSBURG. 

far away are the wide sea and the wider plain - 
the sea lit at Tornea bj the midnight sun, and the 
plain washed on its southern verge by the warm 
waters of the Caspian. 



ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 



ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 



Eye of a god was this blazing stoue, 

Beyond the snows of the Himalaya ; 
These dazzling stars might have lit the zone 

Of the Queen of Jove or the Grace, Aglaia ; 
And the rubies are such as the Burman king 
Sends his elephants white to bring, 
With a troop of soldiers and high grandees 
Greeting the finder, on bended knees. 
Here's an emerald rare as the rose of pride 
Cortez gave his Castilian bride, 
And lustrous-green as the Indian gem 
Charlemagne wore in his diadem; 
And pearls hard-won by the Ceylonese 
From the silent depths of the tropic seas, 
While the conjuror muttered his spells ashore 
Till the diver's toils for the day were o'er; 
And crystals, amber and amethyst. 

That only the Oural caves could harden — 
Bright as blossoms the sun has kissed 

In the fairy plots of a palace garden. 

ly^EVER do I think of St. Petersburg without 
recalling St. Isaac's and the Crown Jewels. 



16 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 

St. Isaac's is the grandest church in Russia, and 
in all northern Europe; and if its magnificence 
of bronze and rose-brown granite had been fashioned 
into a Gothic instead of an Italian pile, it might, 
perhaps, have been the grandest in the world. The 
spot where it stands in the great square near the 
river was, from the founding of the city, designed 
for the site of the finest ecclesiastical structure. 
The present edifice was begun by Alexander I. 
and completed and dedicated with all the splendor 
of the Greek ceremonial a few years after Alexan- 
der II. came to the throne, A million dollars were 
expended in sinking piles for its foundation, and 
untold sums have been lavished upon the cathe- 
dral itself. Built of Finland granite, in the usual 
Russian form of a Greek cross, at each of its 
four sides you ascend by three flights of massive 
steps — each flight cut from a single stone — to the 
four noble entrances, the pillars of whose porticoes 
are monoliths larger than those of the Roman Pan- 
theon, and akin to the columns hewn by genii for 
the Syrian Temple of the Sun. The bases and 
Corinthian capitals of these columns are of bronze. 
Of bronze, also, are the groups illustrative of Scrip- 
ture history and commemorative of apostles, saints, 



ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 17 

and martyrs, filling the pediments and ornamenting 
facade and roof, in rich harmony with the sombre 
back-ground ; while the great Byzantine dome, en- 
circled by smaller domes at the angles of the roof 
and supported by thirty granite pillars, lifts itself 
above the mass, overlaid with gold and surmounted 
by a golden cross, which, in fair weather, to those 
who miles away sail the sea or journey across the 
inland plains, shines like an unfading star. Within, 
all is gorgeous gloom. Perpetual twilight reigns 
under the lofty vault ; and the lamps burning night 
and day before the sacred pictures help to interpret 
the wealth of mosaics and marbles and the splendor 
of the tall columns of malachite and lapis lazuli up- 
holding the ikonastas interposed before the inmost 
shrine — their mingled tints of green and blue hav- 
ing the weird effect of an ice-cavern in the Alps or 
■& grotto under the wave. The shrine itself is in- 
closed in a marvelous miniature temple of these 
precious stones, adorned with gold ; while every- 
where jasper and porphyry, and whatever rare and 
beautiful materials Russian quarries can furnish, 
are wrought into ceiling and floor. Artists may 
point to its over-decoration ; architects may com- 
plain of the space and iron wasted in supporting the 



18 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 

dome ; but in spite of critics and defects it must 
remain one of the superb buildings of the world. 

With reverent faces the fair-haired, blue-eyed 
Russians are continually enterino; for their devo- 
tions. Purchasing a small wax candle from a table 
near the door, and advancing to one of the shrines, 
with prostrations and signs of the cross, thej light 
the taper at the sacred lamp and place it in the 
silver stand pierced with holes ; then, kissing the 
pavement, say a short prayer and retire, still look- 
ing towards the altar ; while without, those who pass 
within the shadow of the dome, cross themselves 
and utter a pious ejaculation. 

Magnificent Temple of the North is St. Isaac's. 
Yet with all its richness it is a saddening pile, dim 
and chill even in a summer noon, and fitted to in- 
spire fear and awe rather than hope and love. God 
would speak to me more cheeringly on the broad 
steppe, beneath the open sky, with the wild east 
wind for anthem, than within these walls, massive 
as the Pyramids, and echoing chant and prayer of 
priest and devotee. 

Whoever delights in jewels should seek admis- 
sion to the Winter Palace. There, in a large room 



S2\ ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 19 

»n the second floor, guarded night and day by offi- 
cers of the household, are preserved the glittering 
treasures of the empire. Most noticeable among 
them is the great OrlofF diamond, surmounting the 
sceptre, the largest of the crown diamonds of Eu- 
rope, and the gift of the politic, elegant, extrava- 
gant Count OrlofF to the Empress Catherine 11. 
Like the Koh-i-noor, it is one of the royal jewels of 
the East which, through misfortune and robbery, 
have passed into Europe. The English stone has 
been made into a brilliant, losing thereby nearly 
half its weight; the Orloff is rose-cut, as it came 
from India. Its size and light suit it to the sceptre 
of a realm like this, and until the Rajah of Mattam 
or some other Oriental monarch loses his state and 
his possessions with the advance of Western civili- 
zation, it will doubtless retain its proud preeminence. 
Yet for mere beauty I would choose rather the ex- 
quisite diamond called the Polar Star; or that lesser 
'ose-tinted stone bought by the Emperor Paul for a 
hundred thousand rubles ; nay, — since selection 
md fancy are so easy here, — I would even prefer 
that mystic jewel, the Shah, gift of Persia, with 
ii Persian inscription upon its side ! 

The Imperial crown is a dome of diamonds 



20 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS, 

bound with pearls, its whiteness relieved by the 
red of an immense ruby which burns upon its top 
and supports a cross composed of five diamonds of 
wondrous brilliancy. The golden globe upbears a 
large sapphire shining with a light steady and ce- 
rulean as the heaven of the Mediterranean, while 
above it a limpid diamond rests upon the azure like 
a white cloud upon the sky. The coronet of the 
Empress is made altogether of diamonds of equal 
size and lustre — a diadem so dainty and dazzling 
that the most republican of women might be for- 
given for being for a moment fascinated by a crown. 
Besides these most noticeable things there is a 
long line of cases filled with jewels wrought into 
necklaces and bracelets and brooches and combs ; 
into buttons and buckles and bows and rosettes ; into 
girdles and plumes and fans and stars and eagles 
and orders ; until the very profusion makes them 
seem common, and you become critical of gems as 
if they w^ere but shells on the sea-shore, renewed 
with every tide. For centuries Russia has drawn 
upon the hoarded treasures of Turkey and Persia 
and India — region of jewels and of races that 
delight to wear them ; and now the mines of Si- 
beria have come to swell her stores. Nothing can 



ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 21 

De more beautiful than some of the Siberian crys- 
tals here with their delicate tints, — green, rose, 
violet — for the setting of which the clearest dia- 
monds have not been thought too costly. 

Standing in this regal room you cease to wonder 
at the world's estimate of precious stones, and know 
why St. John fashioned of their splendors the walls 
and gates of the New Jerusalem. The dew-drop 
vanishes with the sun ; the rose, the pansy, and the 
lily droop and fall ; clouds obscure the serenest blue ; 
and it is only in moments of propitious light and air 
that we catch a glimpse of the rare green of the 
sea ; but the diamond, the ruby, the amethyst, the 
pearl, the topaz, the sapphire, the emerald, keep 
their charms imperishable, and gleam in changeless 
beauty beyond the reach of time. 

The School of Mines displays a collection of 
minerals and stones only less valuable and beautiful 
than the crown jewels ; and these, with the great 
vases and urns of malachite and porphyry and 
jasper, classic in shape and faultless in finish, which 
adorn palace and hall, show Russia's wealth beneath 
the soil and the excellence of her lapidaries. The 
Academy of Sciences harbors the skeleton of the 



22 ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 

huge mammoth found seventy years ago imbedded 
in an ice bank of the Lena, with its flesh so well 
preserved that bears and wolves came to feed upon 
it when the breaking of the cliff exposed it to view. 
And on every side is some institution which impe- 
rial power has dedicated to letters, or science, or 
art, and where you may while away a morning, 
oblivious of the world without. The old palace of 
the Hermitage is converted into an Art Museum 
and its galleries are adorned with some of the best 
pictures of every land, and with the marvels of an- 
cient and modern sculpture. Rivaling these in 
interest are the antiquities from the Greek colonies 
on the northern shores of the Black Sea ; vases 
ind personal ornaments of exquisite workmanship, 
buried in tombs, and now, after two thousand years, 
brought to the light of day. One graceful painted 
vase bears the inscription, " Enrion has made it." 
Who was Enrion, the skillful Greek, charmed with 
his work and calling to us thus, out of the silence 
of centuries, to assure him of immortality ? These 
noble collections are grandly housed, but the 
fine tracery of Grecian art and the impassioned 
creations of the great masters of Italy and Spain 
seem alien in this northern zone, and I fancied the 



ST. ISAAC'S AND THE CROWN JEWELS. 28 

rapt and glowing Madonnas and the sunny land- 
scapes would gradually fade and dim till they be- 
came pallid and misty as the light that fell through 
the lofty windows. 

An imposing and yet a mournful summer city is 
St. Petersburg. Even when the sky is clear, the 
sun's rays are pale and subdued like those of late 
afternoon in our November; and though in its 
streets we saw peasants in their peculiar attire, and 
swift-driven droskies, and gray-coated soldiers, and 
long-robed priests, and heard on every side the rich 
Slavonic tongue ; yet, remembering the saying of 
the Emperor Nicholas, " St. Petersburg is Russian, 
but it is not Russia," without regret we bid fare- 
well to its splendors, and looked eagerly forward 
to Moscow. 



TO MOSCOW. 



TO MOSCOW. 



Across the steppe we journeyed, 

The brown, fir-darkened plain 
That rolls to east and rolls to west, 

Broad as the billowy main, 
When lo 1 a sudden splendor 

Came shimmering; through the air, 
As if the clouds should melt and leave 

The heights of heaven bare, — 
A maze of rainbow domes and spires 

Full glorious on the sky. 
With wafted chimes from many a tower 

As the south wind went by, 
And a thousand crosses lightly hung 

That shone like morning stars — 
*Twas the Kremlin wall! 'twas Moscow — 

The jewel of the Czars ! 

T3 Y the broad guage, arrowy railway, one dim 

afternoon, w^e left St. Petersburg for Moscow. 

On that wide level the city sank like a retiring fleet 

at sea, the high towers and domes of the Monastery 



28 TO MOSCOW. 

of Alexander Nevski lingering longest in the north- 
eastern horizon. For some miles, on our left, a 
straggling suburb extended south along the old post- 
road between the two cities. Gradually the houses 
became fewer, and at length we were alone in the 
great pine-covered plain. 

Only the last of July, but already the summer 
approached its dissolution. Chill mists and vapors 
hung in the air, and every breath wafted showers 
of yellow leaves from the birch trees and filled the 
low pines with answering sighs. There is no sad- 
der sound in nature than the wail of these Russian 
winds blowing straight from the wastes of ice and 
death that encompass the Pole — their force un- 
broken from the Arctic Sea to the Caspian, save by 
the forests through which they sweep with hollow, 
mournful tones that have in them some secret of 
eternity. The wind of the desert uplifts the soul ; 
that of these northern steppes paralyzes it with 
fear. 

Now, for the first time, we began to see the vil- 
lages and hamlets of the former serf population, 
not yet changed under the new regime. Nothing 
drearier can be imagined than these log huts with 
a roof of boards and often but a single window 



TO MOSCOW. 29 

poor sheds which seem dropped without the least 
order upon the bare plain. Though sometimes 
miles from any town, they had often no apparent 
shop of any kind, nor street, nor winding path, nor 
tree, nor shrub, nor window flower to relieve the 
hard monotony. The poorest Highland shieling 
has its gorse and heather and its mountain setting ; 
for the Irish cot there is the little garden and the 
encircling green ; over the mud hut of the Egyp- 
tian the palm waves its plumes ; but neither nature 
nor art cheers these mean abodes which subserve 
only the rudest necessities of existence. Enter 
them and you see but a few clumsy articles of fur- 
niture of the peasant's own manufacture, with noth- 
ing to raise the thoughts above groveling cares but 
the little picture of the Madonna or some patron 
saint hung high in the farthest corner of the room, 
before which a lamp is suspended and kept, if pos- 
sible, always burning, and to which all the events 
of the humble household are made known. Yet as 
the prison captive finds a world of delight in the 
unfolding of a tiny flower or the weaving of a 
spider's web, so, doubtless, even here the loving 
human heart sees much to make life sweet and 
desirable. 



30 TO MOSCOW. 

The Petersburg and Moscow railway was built 
without the slightest regard to important towns be- 
tween the two places. From end to end its appoint- 
ments are noble and uniform. The station-houses 
are handsome structures, built of brick, while 
about them are carefully kept grounds, filled with 
trees and plants adapted to the country. In the 
appartment next us was the Grand Duke Constan- 
tino going to Moscow, a man with the stately, 
florid beauty of the Romanoff family. Wherever 
the train stopped the soldiers of the adjoining bar- 
racks were drawn up on the platform to receive 
him, still as statues, their right hands raised in the 
military salute as he appeared and passed them in 
review. How can men become so automatic, a 
hundred moving absolutely as one ? It seemed 
impossible that separate human hearts beat beneath 
those gray caftans. 

To the cloudy afternoon succeeded the long twi- 
light which is the night of the northern summer, 
and through it we held our way southward, ovoi 
the lonely, forest-dark plain. At five o'clock the 
next morning we crossed Europe's great river, tho 
Volga, at Tver, where its navigation begins, and 
from whence you may sail to distant Persia. 
Here, two hundred miles from its source in the 



TO MOSCOW, 31 

only elevations of central Russia, the Valdai hills, 
it is a shallow stream some six hundred feet in 
breadth, flowing with a calm current, and as if 
quite unconscious of all the tribes and territories 
its waters must greet before they find the sea. The 
boats and barges which crowd it show the impor- 
tance it even Here attains as an avenue of com- 
merce. Tver rises picturesquely on its right bank, 
an ancient town famous in the past for its invasions 
by Poles and Tartars, and for the murder, in its 
convent, of the Metropolitan Philip ; and in the 
present, for its manufacture of nails from the iron 
of the Ourals. 

Advancing day revealed an atmosphe-re undim- 
oaed by the fogs of St. Petersburg, and through 
which the sun shone with warmer ray. Fields of 
(ye and barley began to gain upon the fir-woods ; 
:he grass was greener ; the trees taller ; the mo- 
lotony of the vast plain relieved by marked undula- 
dons ; and at length, — like Madrid shining in the 
morning sun as you approach it over the wind- 
swept table-lands of Castile, but far more glorious, 
— before us rose an assemblage of brilliant white 
walls and of glittering domes and towers, and we 
were in that Asiatic city planted on the steppes of 
Europe, " Holy Mother Moscow ! " 



THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 



THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 



Above each gate a blessed Saint 

Asks favor of the skies, 
And the hosts of the foe do fail and faint 

At the gleam of their watchful eyes ; 
And Pole, and Tartar, and haughty Gaul, 
Flee, dismayed, from the Kremlin wall. 

Here lie our ancient Czars, asleeo. — 

Ivan and Feodor, — 
While loving angels round them keep 

Sweet peace forevermorfe 1 
Only when Easter bells ring loud. 
They sign the cross beneath the shroud. 

O Troitsa's altar is divine, — 

St. Sergius ! hear our prayers I 
And KiefF, Olga's lofty shrine, 

The name of " The Holy " bears ; 
But Moscow blends all rays in one — 
They are the stars, and she the sun 1 

nnHE story of Moscow is written on its streets 

and walls. Every roof and dome bears the 

impress of Tartar domination, and the dark faces 



36 THE SHRINEIS OF MOSCOW. 

among its fair Muscovite crowds show that the 
Asiatic still lingers in the long contested land. Its 
dwellings, white or pink or yellow, green-roofed 
and encompassed with gardens ; its palaces and 
conventual piles ; its churches with lofty towers 
filled with bells ; its numberless domes and cupolas, 
gilded, silvered, enameled, — each upholding above 
the crescent a cross of gold attached by shining 
chains of filagree work, — and, high in the midst, 
the strange gateways and battlements and spires 
of the Kremlin, make up a Christian, Mohammedan, 
wondrous whole, more impressive for the solitary 
waste which encircles its grotesque, yet unrivaled 
splendors. 

The Kremlin is both fortress and altar ; the re- 
ligious heart of Russia ; the place of her holiest 
shrines and the deposit of her proudest trophies. 
About it the streets of Moscow range themselves 
as those of an English cathedral city do about the 
minster. Triangular in shape and somewhat over 
a mile in circumference, it rises on the elevated 
bank of the Moskwa, quaint, and grand, and inde- 
scribable. Massive stone walls — now surmounting 
an elevation, now dipping into a ravine — close it 
round, irregular, bold, and fanciful in design, pierced 



THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 37 

by gates and overhung with towers. The most 
famous of these is the " Redeemer Gate,'* near the 
middle of the eastern wall, built by a Milanese the 
year before the discovery of America. Above it 
hangs an adored picture of the Redeemer of Smo- 
lensk, at sight of which (so says tradition) the awe- 
struck Tartars, in their last invasion, turned away 
from the fortress, while, a century later, the Poles 
fled before it when it was borne by Pojarski to the 
battle-field ; and ever since, for these gracious inter- 
positions, all who enter. Czar as well as peasant, bare 
their heads and cross themselves in devotion, ^ext 
in importance is the Nicholas Gate, with its picture 
of St. Nicholas of Mojaisk, who abhors lies, and in 
face of which, in old days, oaths were administered 
to contesting parties. Over it is written the proud 
inscription of Alexander I., that Napoleon's order 
to destroy this gate was only effectual in cleaving 
the tower at its base, while neither the glass of the 
picture nor its hanging lamp were broken. The 
moat which once encircled the walls is now trans- 
formed into gardens planted with trees and shrubs 
and flowers, and thronged with pleasure seekers 
during the warm evenings of the fleeting summer 
Perhaps the best point from which to view th« 



38 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 

Kremlin is at its southwestern angle, on the stone 
bridge across the Moskwa, in the late afternoon. 
There it rises before you, stately with domes and 
towers ; defiant with battlements and turrets and 
lance-like spires ; gay with golden pinnacles and 
roofs of green and azure, and bearing aloft its glit 
tering crosses like lines of fire against the sky. 
Last summer, in the high Rocky Mountains, before 
an assemblage of unusual jagged peaks, and bare, 
regular walls, suddenly the setting sun broke from 
the clouds and lit up the whole range with glory. 
The snow-masses were dazzling in their whiteness ; 
the ravines lay in blackest shadow ; each crag and 
splinter was bathed in crimson light ; the pines 
stood in intensest green, and, beyond, many a lofty 
projecting point shone like a star. Memories of 
Moscow came vividly back, and, enchanted, I said, 
"It is the Kremlin of Colorado ! " 

Although St. Petersburg is the residence of the 
Czars, the most important events of their lives are 
solemnized in the Kremlin of Moscow ; — crowned 
in the Cathedral of the Assumption ; wedded in 
that of the Annunciation ; buried, until the time of 
Peter the Great, in the Church of the Archangel 
Michael. The Cathedral of the Assumption is the 



THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 39 

Russian Holy of Holies, adorned with the oldest 
and most sacred pictures and containing the tombs 
of the famous patriarchs who have officiated there. 
Solidly built of stone, the plainness of its exterior is 
only relieved by the five golden domes ; but within 
there is no space which is not covered with paint- 
ings or mosaics on a gilded ground, — the most 
precious set wnth costly gems, — and so unchanged 
is it by the lapse of time that the most conservative 
sects of the Orthodox Church can worship here un- 
disturbed by heretical innovations. Every Easter, 
when the huge bell of the adjacent tower sends its 
summons abroad, they crowd its court-yard and its 
narrow but lofty nave, and prostrate themselves as 
before an unpolkited shrine. Through the doors of 
its silver screen, the Czar at his coronation, after 
reciting, as Head of the Church, the Orthodox 
Confession of Faith, and praying for the empire, 
enters the sacred place and takes the consecrated 
bread and wine from the altar in the holy com- 
munion. From this priestly act the doors of every 
church screen throughout the land bear the title of 
^' Royal.'' 

Yet, like most Russian cathedrals, its interior is 
oppressive in its gloom. The incense-laden air 



40 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW, 

tempered by no artificial heat, is always chill. The 
sun falls obliquely through the high windows, and 
in the lower dimness the lamps burning before the 
sacred shrines seem like twinkling stars. There is 
scarcely light enough to display the patriarcha 
tombs — the mummied hand of the Metropolitan 
Philip exposed for the kisses of the devout — the 
jeweled pictures of the screen behind which no 
woman is allowed to pass, and which rises, massive 
and high, as if to bar the soul from more intimate 
communion. The martyrs stare with hard, fixed 
features from the square, gilded pillars that uphold 
the dome, and madonnas and saints, with the same 
faces here as everywhere from Abo to Odessa (for 
no departure is allowed from the old Byzantine 
models), look out meagre and sombre and grim 
from their imprisoning frames. 

Two things lighten the solemn melancholy of 
the service — the equality of classes, and the music 
of the chants and responses. Here are no pews or 
privileged seats, but high and low bow side by side 
before the altar, the costly furs and velvets and 
rich shawls of the nobles brushing the worn felt 
and ragged sheep-skin of the serf. The old Greek 
chants are employed, rearranged in the last century 



THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW, 41 

by Italian masters, but retaining their noble sim- 
plicity ; wholly vocal, yet so pure, so sweet, so 
harmonious, that they float through the gloom like 
songs of seraphs ministering to souls in prison. 
I shall never forget a vesper service in the church 
of the Kremlin Convent of the Ascension — the 
devout, silent crowd, the priest in his blue tunic 
and long fair curls making the round of the sacred 
pictures with incense and candles, and the celestial 
warbling of the nuns in an adjoining chapel, high 
and clear as if with the sound their souls were ex- 
haling to heaven ! 

On the site of the old residence of the Czars in 
the Kremlin, the Emperor Nicholas erected a mar- 
ble palace crowned with a gilded dome, its white 
mass conspicuous from every point of view. Its 
interior is singularly splendid, from the great hall 
used only for the banquet given by the emperor 
to the nobles, after his coronation, to the private 
apartments for the royal family during their visits 
to Moscow. All that remained entire of the old 
palace was incorporated with the new, the most 
important relic being the " Red Staircase " leading 
to the Cathedral of the Assumption, and connectea 
with many notable events in Russian history. It 



12 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 

was up these stairs Napoleon strode to take posses- 
sion. Ah, could he but have looked forward fifty 
years, and seen that the only trace of him there 
would be the pictures on the walls portraying his 
defeat ! But there was no wizard to give Lochiel 
a warning. 

In the treasury adjoining, are gathered the tro- 
phies and mementoes which invading armies and 
ravaging fires have left to Russia. Here are the 
standards of the ancient Czars ; captured colors — 
the pride of Turkey and Persia — and the banners 
borne to the conquest of Siberia ; the coronation 
robes and thrones and crowns and sceptres of the 
Russian royal line, and those taken from the kings 
who have submitted to them — of Kazan, of Poland, 
of Astrakhan, of Georgia — with countless other 
things illustrative of the past, and valuable for rich- 
ness of material or association. The Church Treas- 
ury, in the House of the Holy Synod, close to the 
Cathedral of the Assumption, is filled with superb 
ecclesiastical relics — robes and mitres thick set with 
pearls and precious stones, gems engraved with 
sacred subjects, and worn by bishops on a chain 
about the neck — and, most interesting of all, the 
lilver vessels for the preparation of the holy oil of 



THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 43 

baptism, mingled here during Lent by the metro- 
poHtan and his associate clergy ; composed of the 
purest wines and oils and spices and balsams, and 
sent hence to each bishop in the empire. Every 
church is consecrated with it ; every communicant 
(and all Orthodox Russians are communicants), 
from Czar to peasant, is anointed with it in bap- 
tism. A small, curious flask is still preserved 
here, in which it is said the first oil was sent to 
the Russian Church from Constantinople. The 
soft-voiced monk in black robes, who was in at- 
tendance, took up this flask with the utmost ven- 
eration, and told us how every year a few drops 
were poured from it to sanctify the new chrism, 
and an equal quantity of the fresh mixture re- 
turned, so that it remains always full. 

The treasure-rooms of Russia make jewels seem 
valueless through abundance. You would hardly 
be surprised if at length you were shown an apart- 
ment blazing from floor to ceiling with rubies and 
diamonds. And these riches are but a part of the 
wealth and glory of the Kremlin. Every stone has 
its memories ; every room has its relics ; and aL 
are consecrated to patriotism and to religion. 



44 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW, 

Just outside the Redeemer Gate of the Kremlic 
stands tlie most picturesque edifice in Russia, — 
that conglomerate of rainbow domes and towers, — • 
that tulip of architecture, — the Church of St. Basil. 
Erected in the sixteenth century to commemorate 
the taking of Kazan, it is the wildest dream of a 
mosque, except that for the light, airy spaces of the 
Arab structures, there are the heavy walls and the 
gaily-painted, dungeon-Hke chapels of the Musco- 
vite north. 

Rivaling the ancient edifices in splendor and in- 
terest is the Temple of the Saviour, on an elevated 
position above the river and a little southwest of 
the Kremlin. Built in memory of Russia's triumph 
over the French, it was begun the very year of their 
invasion, and it will be yet some years before its 
completion. The site originally selected was upon 
the hills from whence Napoleon had his first view 
of the city, but the ground was not firm, and it 
was removed from thence to its present locality. 
It is constructed of a light stone, in the simplest 
form of a Greek cross, and — what is rare in a 
Russian Church, where statues are forbidden, and 
anything in the form of sculpture is unusual — it is 



THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW. 45 

adorned on the exterior, for half its height, with 
well-wrought bas-reliefs of scenes from Scripture 
and from Russian history, appropriate to the event 
it celebrates. Its golden Oriental domes are far 
more beautiful than the smoothly rounded ones of 
St. Isaac's, and the crosses which surmount them 
are not of the Latin type, but such as are found on 
the early churches of the Empire, with three trans- 
verse bars, according to the tradition which makes 
the cross of Christ to have been fashioned of cedar, 
and palm, and cypress, and olive. Over the en- 
trance is the watchword, " God with us," and 
within, the Temple is massive with rich marbles, 
conspicuous among them a dark-veined, lustrous 
stone from the Crimea. Blent with Christmas cere- 
monies, how grand will rise beneath this roof, the 
thanksgivings of the nation for deliverance from 
the foe ! One might well cross the sea and the 
steppe to listen here to the words with which the 
service opens, " How art thou fallen from heaven, 
O Lucifer, son of the morning! " 

When we saw the cathedral, workmen were 
busy quietly fitting and polishing the costly blocks, 
— tokens of Russia's patriotism and devotion, — and 
Dn the grassy space without, bluebells and butter 



46 THE SHRINES OF MOSCOW, 

cups nodded in the wind beneath the shadow of the 
great dome, and the Moskwa rippled calmly below 
as if neither invader's foot nor clash of arms haa 
ever disturbed their tranquillity. 

And this is the end of Napoleon in Russia. 



MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 



MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 



O the splendor of the city, 

When the sun is in the west I 
Euddy gold on spire and belfry, 

Gold on Moskwa's placid breast ; 
Till the twilight soft and sombre 

Falls on wall and street and square. 
And. the domes and towers in shadow 

Stand like silent monks at prayer. 

'T is the hour for dreams and phantoms; — 

Meet me by the Sacred Gate ! 
Ah, what ghostly forms may enter 

When the night is wearing late ! 
Czars may pass in haughty penance ; 

Khans bewail their Kremlin gone ; 
Boris, Timur, haunt the fortress 

Till the east is pale with dawn. 

"V/rOSCOW is full of interest outside of Krem- 
lin and church and palace. Its situation 
is high and healthful, and its half million inhab- 
itants are spread over an area greater than that of 



50 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 

any other European city except London. It is the 
largest manufacturing town in Russia, — having 
within its walls and suUurbs nearly two hundred 
factories for the weaving of silk alone, — and when 
more railways have penetrated the East, it will be 
the mart of exchange for Europe and Asia. Its 
nobles follow the court to St. Petersburg. Mer- 
chant princes are taking their place. 

On reaching the city we established ourselves, 
after trying the pretentious "H6tel Dusaux," at the 
house of Mr. Billot, which we found very comforta- 
ble. The landlord, a gentlemanly Swiss, had what 
seems to be thought a necessity here, a little place 
out of town, where he spent every night, returning 
in the morning with spotless linen, a flower in his 
button-hole, and bouquets for the rooms, from his 
own garden. We sometimes dined at the public 
table to see the varied company assembled there, 
and had occasionally striking proofs of the union of 
countries and races, to w^hich the world is tending. 
One day a man extolled to his neighbor, a London 
merchant, " the delicious pumpkin pies of New 
England." He was a Tyrolese, who had been in 
this country as the leader of a band of singers, and 
in the same capacity was then on his way to Nijni 



MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 51 

At another time, a Hungarian, who had spent sev- 
eral years in America as a political exile, narrated 
a sharp story of a New Hampshire man's evasion 
of the Maine Liquor Law. It excited such laughter 
in those who understood it, that he was pressed to 
repeat it in Russ, which he did, and afterwards in 
Italian, in French, and in German. Its sly Yankee 
humor appeared to be as much appreciated by all 
these people, as it would have been at home. A 
Btout Nuremberger laughed till he seemed on the 
point of apoplexy, and the Italian cried " Bravo ! " 
till the ceiling rang. 

From this house, which was near the Kremlin, 
we explored, at leisure, the city and its suburbs. 
Nothing can be more entertaining than that laby- 
rinth of shops, the Great Bazaar, in whose long 
arcades each trade has its quarter ; none among 
them more inviting than that devoted to jewelers 
and silversmiths, whose shelves and counters shine 
with the ciystals and gems of Siberia and India, and 
with articles of the exquisite niello work peculiar 
to the country. At each merchant's right hand 
was seen a small frame filled with ivory balls, strung 
on wires, by which he reckoned his accounts, and 
perhaps standing near it was a glass of tea. Scarce- 



52 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN, 

[j less attractive is the Riadi, an open bazaar, the 
centre of the traffic in wax tapers, sacred pictures, 
and the lamps which burn before them. When 
one remembers that no Russian room, whether in 
hut or palace or place of public resort, is complete 
without its holy picture hung high in the farthest 
corner, it explains these piles upon piles of Madon- 
nas and heaps of saints and apostles, framed in 
every form and fashion to suit varying tastes and 
means. Then there is the Fair held on Sundays 
in the street, — the bazaar of the poorest classes, 
where every variety of trash spread over rude 
tables or upon mats on the ground, finds a market, 
and where, if you mingle with the crowd, you must 
be careful not to press too near to the peasants lest 
you should take home with you some of the vermin 
of which their greasy sheep-skin coats are often 
full ; for the bath that must always precede their 
church communion, does not extend to their clothes, 
which are worn without washing, night and day, 
for months and perhaps years, until they become 
rags, and are exchanged for new. 

The tea-houses with their white-robed attend- 
ants who serve the delicate overland tea — to the 
ladies in cups, to the gentlemen in deep glass turn 



MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN, 58 

biers — with a slice of lemon dropped into it instead 
of cream, are a novel feature of the city. To these 
quiet tables, with their fragrant beverage, come 
friends for genial talk ; buyers and sellers to con- 
summate their bargains, civilians and soldiers to 
discuss politics and promotion, and all classes for 
recreation and cheer. The finest tea here costs 
about ten dollars a pound, and a leaf or two will 
make a full cup. When drawn it is of a faint 
amber color and has a delicious aroma. Hot tea is 
sold about the streets in winter as lemonade is in 
summer. When sugar is used it is not dropped into 
the cup or glass, but the lump is held in the hand 
and a bite taken now and then — an inconvenient 
way, for the fine-grained, solid beet-root sugar is as 
iiard as a stone. 

Most of the Tartars here are in a menial condition 
and employed as coachmen and servants. Many 
families are, however, of mingled Tartar and Rus- 
sian blood. Several of the churches in the city 
might seem to have been reared for the worship of 
" the Faithful " if only on the swelling domes the 
crescent replaced the cross, and from the high towers 
the bells were removed to make way for the muez- 
ein calling to prayer. But the rule of the Prophet 



54 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN, 

is over. There is but a single mosque, at the ex 
tremity of the city — a poor, plain affair where the 
few Mohammedans gather meekly to their devotions, 
in mockery of the day when the Duke of Muscovy 
went forth to meet the Tartar ambassadors, spread- 
ing a mat of rich sables for their feet, presenting 
them with a goblet of mare's milk, — the wine of 
the Mongol steppes, — and humbly licking up the 
drops that fell on the manes of their fiery horses ! 

The great Foundling Hospital, established by 
Catherine II., has, as one source of its revenue, the 
profits derived from the government manufacture 
of playing cards — no inconsiderable sum, for card- 
playing is almost universal. The girls brought up 
here are, at a proper age, shown on certain days to 
visitors. Five kopecks a week are laid up by the 
state as their dowry. They are often pleasing and 
well educated, and are frequently chosen for wives 
by the lesser merchants, as they have no trouble- 
some relations. 

Yet neither cathedral nor bazaar nor hospital 
has more charms for the stranger than the out-door 
life of the city. The streets are of varying width ; 
crooked, paved with sharp, flinty stones, and lined 
with buildings of every style of architecture 



MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 



Churches, palaces, and the pink or yellow white- 
washed cottages of peasants are jumbled together, 
and from whatever point you look some picturesque 
group of domes and towers delights the eye, or 
perchance down the vista you catch a glimpse of 
the Kremlin wall. Through these avenues pours 
the varied population. Princes pass in their swift 
carriages, and perhaps the Metropolitan, hidden in 
his stately coach drawn by sleek black horses of 
noble breed; merchants dash by in their droskies- — 
men, it may be, of enormous wealth, and whose 
transactions are now with Paris and now with 
Pekin ; drays and country carts lumber along, 
driven by peasants with wide trousers tucked into 
high boots, or tied with a string — their feet en- 
cased in shoes made of plaited reeds or strips of 
lime-tree bark, fashioned by themselves in the long 
winter evenings — a blouse-like shirt of calico, 
often pink in color, worn outside the trousers and 
confined at the waist by a sash or a belt of leather, 
and above this, unless in heat of noon, a wrapper 
of sheep-skin reaching below the knees — while 
often there is no covering for the head but the 
yellow, matted hair, bound with a fillet and falling 
low on the shouldeis as the full beard falls on the 



56 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 

breast. In the open spaces stand the coachmen 
with their vehicles waiting to be hired — dressed in 
low, broad-crowned, black hats; long caftans of 
dark cloth fittins; close about the neck but without 
a collar, padded at the hips, double in front and 
fastened under the left arm with six metal buttons ; 
while their thick white gloves, when not in use, are 
secured bj the thumbs to their girdles. Men carry 
about buckets filled with salted cucumbers, selling 
them, one by one, to the peasant crowd as a relish 
for their black bread, which they eat as they go. 
At the churches and the street shrines of the Vir- 
gin, passers-by make the sign of the cross and even 
prostrate themselves in their reverence. Nurses 
appear clad in the Russian national costume — ^ 
white under-garment, rather low in the neck, with 
full, short sleeves ; a dark skirt gathered into a 
band just above the bosom and suspended by straps 
over the shoulders, and a belt about the waist from 
which depends a long white apron. Earrings and a 
necklace of beads are worn, and on the head a high, 
turban-like cap of some bright color. This striking 
but rather formless attire, seems now to be given 
over to nurses, and court ladies for state occasions, 
when the head-dress blazes with jewels. Mer- 



MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. £,7 

chants' clerks, when not busy, may be seen sitting 
in the shop doors playing chess or dominoes and 
perhaps holding a pet cat the while. Loads of 
birch wood go by, often a most expensive lux- 
ury for the poorest peasants ; but a little wood 
lasts them long, as their brick ovens are not al- 
lowed to cool, and air is excluded. Soldiers con- 
scious and unbending in their uniforms are always 
in view, and the dark faces of Gypsies, Tartars, 
Persians, and Jews are a pleasant relief after 
the fair monotony of the average Russians. Why 
is it that the men of the Slavonic family are so 
much comelier than the women ? Handsome men 
abound, and doubtless there are lovely, graceful 
women here, but they are rarely visible in church, 
or street, or bazaar. I saw only one or two who 
could be called beautiful, but they showed the possi- 
bilities of the race — dainty creatures with the lily 
complexion, blue eyes, and blonde hair, which we 
ascribe to angels ; the type, perhaps, of the An- 
astasias and Natalies whom the early Czars chose 
out of all the land to share their throne. The 
women of the lower classes, with their flat features, 
and hair and eyes and skin of much the same hue, 
have ordinarily nothing but an honest, good-natured 



58 MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 

expression to redeem their round faces from positive 
ugliness. They wear loose boots, short skirts, long 
sacques of wadded cloth or sheep-skin, tie a thick 
handkerchief over their heads, and at a little dis- 
tance look so much like men that you can hardly 
tell whether you are gazing at Ivan or Nadia. 

These shifting scenes through the day ; but if at 
dawn a trumpet blast should wake you, and, rising, 
you should look from your window, you would see 
a different sight, — a mournful procession threading 
the yet quiet streets, — first a mounted police officer, 
then a trumpeter, then a company of soldiers, and 
lastly a high cart drawn by four horses abreast, and 
on its top, in convict garb, a criminal who is to be 
thus exposed for three successive mornings and then 
set out on his long journey to Siberia. They round 
the corner ; the brazen notes ring out again ; the 
Cossacks close their line and the poor wretch hangs 
his head as he disappears. Melancholy as is the 
scene, it is said that exile to Siberia is not now 
the terrible fate it was in former days, and it is 
comforting to think that death on the gallows, so 
common witli us, is unknown in Russia except as 
the penalty of high treason. 

In the suburbs of Moscow are various ornamen- 



MOSCOW BEYOND THE KREMLIN. 69 

tal gardens, to which the people resort, especially 
on Sundays ; for Sunday, after morning church, is a 
holiday, the Russians, both men and women, smok- 
ing cigarettes, sipping tea, and playing cards, of 
which they are passionately fond ; the Germans, 
and there are many here, drinking beer, smoking 
their pipes, or listening to the music of an orchestra, 
or to the singing of some band of Tyrolese or 
Gypsies. We even saw them one day sitting be- 
neath their umbrellas in a chill, misty rain, and 
drinking in the sweet sounds as complacently as if 
they had been by the sunny Rhine. These gar- 
dens are kept with care, and every shrub and tree 
is cultivated which the climate favors. There are 
trim hedges, plots of bright flowers, lindens and 
elms and locusts ; and if you do not look beyond to 
see the native forests — the sombre firs and thin 
birches that stretch away to the horizon — you will 
hardly credit your high latitude. 

I know not which is the more beautiful city, 
Constantinople as you approach it from the Sea of 
Marmora, or Moscow from the Sparrow Hills. The 
one rises from the water's edge, its white minarets 
melting into the blue sky of the south ; the other 
towers and flashes from the northern plain. About 



60 MOSCOW BEYOND TEE KREMLIN. 

the Turkish capital cluster the storied hills of Eu- 
rope and Asia ; around that of Muscovy the river 
winds like a line of enchantment, and the lofty 
domed monasteries on its borders stand like sen- 
tinels keeping watch over the sacred shrines. I 
know not ; but had I one drop of Russian blood in 
my veins, Moscow should be to me Queen of the 
World I 



MOSCOW BELL& 



MOSCOW BELLS. 



That distant chime ! As soft it swells. 

What memories o'er me steal 1 
Again I hear the Moscow bells 

Across the moorland peal ! 
The bells that rock the Kremlin tower 

Like a strong wind, to and fro, — 
Silver sweet in its topmost bower. 

And the thunder's boom below. 

They say that oft at Easter dawn 

When all the world is fair, 
God's angels out of heaven are drawn 

To list the music there. 
And while the rose-clouds with the breeze 

Drift onward, — like a dream, 
High in the ether's pearly seas 

Their radiant faces gleam. 

O when some Merlin with his spells 

A new delight would bring. 
Say : I will hear the Moscow bells 

Across the moorland rins 1 



64 MOSCOW BELLS. 

The bells that rock the Kremlin tower 

Like a strong wind, to and fro, — 
Silver sweet in its topmost bower, 

And the thunder's boom below 1 

T OFTIEST of all the structures in Moscow is 
the Tower of John the Great, near to the Ca- 
thedral of the Assumption. Erected just before the 
incoming of the Romanoff dynasty, it looks solid 
enough to send its peals down the centuries and 
welcome the latest sovereign of the line. Its base- 
ment is a chapel dedicated to St. John, over which 
rises story after story filled with bells, the largest 
weighing sixty- four tons — nearly five times the 
weight of the great bell of England, at York Min- 
ster, yet only half that of the " Czar Kolokol," the 
broken bell which rests on a granite pedestal at the 
foot of the tower. The smallest two are of silver, 
most sweet, most musical ; and above them expands 
the golden dome, its crowning cross nearly three 
hundred feet in air. From whatever point one 
views the city this tower rises proud, majestic, the 
central figure of the Kremlin. The peasants re- 
gard it with reverential awe, and when, at impor- 
tant festivals of the Church, its huge bell, like the 
discharge of artillery, booms over the plain, they 




TOWER OF JOHN THE GREAT 



MOSCOW BELLS. 65 

listen to it as to the voice of God. At Easter all 
the bells are rung in unison, making the earth 
tremble and burdening the air with their rich 
volume of sound. " Christ is risen ! " thunders 
the lowest bell, grand and solemn as a call to 
judgment. " Christ is risen ! " repeats each story 
with its peculiar harmony and power. " Christ is 
risen ! " echoes, like an angel's song, from the sil- 
ver tongues beneath the dome. 

Ah, what wild music must the bells of Moscow 
have made at the burning of the city ! Rung at 
first in dread alarm, and then as the town was 
abandoned to its fate, answering with a dull sound 
the stroke of falling timbers, and at the crash of 
the steeples plunging with weird, w^oeful knell into 
the fiery death below I 

Russia, through its whole extent, is the land of 
bells. Every church and monastery and convent 
has its tower, where they hang, in number and size 
proportioned to the wealth of the community. The 
church or relisious house is the most attractive 
feature of the landscape in northern and central 
Russia, and the bells are the life and joy of the 
parish. Over the dark forests, across the dreary 
plains, by the still lakes, along the winding rivers, 

5 



66 MOSCOW BELLS. 

they send their harmonious peals, gladdening and 
elevating the soul. The peasant crosses himself as 
he listens, and believes that the saints are near and 
heaven awaits him yonder. 

There are no chimes, however, nor are the bells 
rung as elsewhere ; they are stationary, and the 
tongue is struck against the side, — the larger bells 
requiring for this the united efforts of several men. 
One feast morning, in Moscow, we saw in a low, 
open church-tower a man ringing half a dozen bells 
at once by ropes in his hands and attached to his 
arms. By the peculiar tolling of the larger bells, 
and the clang when all are struck together, the 
worshippers know to what service they are called 
and when it will begin. Full clashes of bells often 
introduce and conclude special ceremonies and sol- 
emn moments in the mass. There are no wedding 
peals nor tolling bells for ordinary funerals, as in 
many places with us ; but the great bell tolls when 
a priest dies, and all are rung with tremendous 
clamor while an archbishop enters or leaves a place 
m his diocese. All the larger bells are ornamented 
with bas-reliefs, with arabesque figures, with sacred 
texts, and with an inscription relating to the date 
of their casting and the church for which they are 



MOSCOW BELLS 67 

intended. As they are raised to the belfry they 
are sprinkled with holy water, and prayers are read 
and hymns sung to consecrate them to their office. 

Woe to the souls hovering in this sky of the north 
if there be truth in the Moslem fancy that the ring- 
ing of bells disturbs their repose I Over the land 
they call with multitudinous tongues, and the chill, 

pure air vibrates unceasingly to their utterance of 
pathos or of power. I have heard -^ 

« The bells of Shandon 
That sound so grand on 
The pleasant waters of the liiver Lee ; " 

the curfew from the towers of Canterbury; the 
wondrous bell of the cathedral at Lyons, and those 
that swing in the sunny campaniles along the Medi- 
terranean ; the chimes of Burgos, and the mourn- 
ful notes from the belfries of the old Jesuit missions 
in California ; but as I write their tones die away, 
and before me rise the domes of Russia — gold 
against the pale azure of her sky — while from their 
depths resound those sonorous peals that fill the 
blue vault with harmony and float in fainter music 
to the far horizon. Nay, were I to frame an oath 
of grand and melodious sounds, I would say, By 
ihe thunder of the Kremlin tower, and the sweet- 
ness of the bells of Valdai I 



TROITSA MONASTERY. 



TROITSA MONASTERY. 



O sacred Troitsal when the skies 

Of morn are blue I lift my eyes 

To see again in azure air 

Thy starry domes and turrets fair, 

And to hear from thy gray cathedral walls 

The chanted hymn as it swells and falls. 

Then with the pilgrim train I wait 

And enter, glad, thy wide-flung gate, 

To drink of St. Sergius' holy well 

That heals the griefs no soul may tell. 

Or kneel with them at his wondrous shrine, 

His staff and his simple robe beside, — 
And trace on my breast the mystic sign, 

And pray for the peace of the glorified I 

Then fade thy towers ; the music dies ; 
Above me are my native skies, 
Blue and clear in the August morn. 
Over the pines and the rustling corn 



72 TROITSA MONASTERY. 

With a song from brook and breeze and bird 
Sweet as the hymn in thy cloisters heard, — 
And I know the fields are a shrine as fair, 
For the Lord of the saints is here as there I 

/^NE bright morning we went by rail from Mos- 
cow forty miles north to the Troitsa (Trinity) 
Monastery. This monastery, founded in 4;he four- 
teenth century by the devout hermit St. Sergius, is 
the most sacred shrine in Russia. The first struc- 
ture was taken and destroyed by the Mongols, but 
it was at once built up again, and since, though 
often besieged, neither Tartars nor Poles nor 
French have been able to overcome it ; plague and 
cholera have never ventured within its walls ; but, 
" strong in the Lord," it has been the refuge of 
Czar and prince in time of trouble, and "the gates 
of hell (say the Russians) could not prevail against 
it.*' The way thither lies through the great color- 
less plain which encircles Moscow, — colorless ex- 
cept for the fir woods and the occasional grain fields, 
— and as the train moved slowly over it, stopping 
at every few versts for relays of pilgrims, it was 
natural to think of the vast influence this and kin- 
dred establishments have had upon the nation. 
When Vladimir accepted the God of the Greeks 



TROITSA MONASTERY. 73 

priests and pictures and manuscripts and relics were 
brought at once from Constantinople and Mount 
Athos to KiefF, and convents and monasteries were 
founded after the fashion of the East. Great privi- 
leges were granted to the priests, and even under 
the Tartar conquerors they were exempt from aU 
tribute and service. Enormous sums were be 
queathed to them that the givers might be sure ol 
salvation, and most of the princes of the race of 
Rurik clothed themselves for death in the monkish 
habit that they might be at once received to heaven. 
Russia was filled with religious houses — shrines 
for the devotion of a simple, superstitious people — 
and the inmates wearing the black robes of the 
Greeks, and inheriting their manners, their tradi- 
tions, and their pride, looked, and look to this day, 
with a patronizing, half-contemptuous air upon the 
secular clergy who marry, and who perform all the 
lowly, social offices of religion. These parish 
priests, called the White Clergy to distinguish 
them from the Black Clergy, the monks, rarely 
receive a salary of more than three hundred ru- 
bles, — usually it is much less, — and were it not for 
the garden and field attached to their houses, the 
gifts they receive from the peasants, and the small 



74 TROITSA MONASTERY. 

fees for weddings, baptisms, and sacrament certifi- 
cates, their lot would be hard indeed. Yet " happy 
as a priest's wife " is a proverb here, for a priest 
can marry bat once, nor can a widower officiate, so 
that when the wife dies the husband must drop 
back into the world or take monastic vows. (In- 
deed, for all Orthodox Russians only the first mar- 
riage is made easy, A second marriage necessitates 
two years absence from Holy Communion ; a third, 
five years ; and a fourth marriage cannot take 
place. Not the Emperor nor the Metropolitan can 
authorize the latter.) The high officers of the 
Church, the bishops, the archbishops, the metro- 
politans, are almost without exception taken from 
the Black Clergy ; and the Holy Synod in which 
the Patriarchate was merged by Peter the . Great, 
consists of twelve of these dignitaries presided over 
by the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg. This synod 
decides all ecclesiastical questions, but the Emperor, 
as head of the Church, must sanction their decrees 
before they are valid. It is monks who instruct 
the priests in theology, and who are the directors 
and inspectors of academies and colleges and uni- 
versities. There has long been dissatisfaction on 
the part of the priests at their subordinate position. 







PHILARET, LATE METROPOLITAN OF MOSCOW AND 
ARCHIMANDRITE OF TROITSA. 



TROITSA MONASTERY, 75 

Dut the system has remained unchanged because 
nothing could be published about Church matt«rs 
which had not been approved by the bishop of the 
diocese. Under Alexander II., however, there is 
far more liberty of opinion and expression, and it is 
evident that his sympathies are with the six hun- 
dred thousand parish priests, rather than with the 
ten thousand monks. Two years ago, when Phila- 
ret, Metropolitan of Moscow, died, he appointed to 
the place Innocent, a priest who had become emi- 
nent by his labors in Siberia, and who, though his 
wife was dead, refused to become a monk, declaring 
that it was " a custom rather than a canon of the 
Church." The monks were horrified, but the more 
intelligent among the people applauded. Since 
then another married priest has been made rector 
of the Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburg. 
As in the Latin Church, the rule of the monks 
begins to wane. 

But, through the belief in miracles entertained 
by the masses of the people, and a reverence foi 
that spirit of renunciation which is supposed to in 
duce men to make their home in the cloister and 
the desert, the monasteries are still stately and rich 
and strong. The largest ha^'e a yearly income of 



76 TROITSA MONASTERY. 

half a million rubles derived from the state, from 
their mills and gardens and fisheries, and still ipore 
from the public. Great sums are paid them for the 
privilege of burial within the walls, for masses said 
in remembrance of the dead, and for intercessory 
prayers for the living. Over a certain extent of 
the country about them they have the right of 
soliciting alms and of putting up boxes to receive 
contributions. In every station of the Moscow and 
St. Petersburg railway there is a box belonging to 
the Troitsa monastery, and its income from this 
source has reached two hundred thousand rubles. 
To the monasteries belong most of the famous relics 
and miracle-working pictures; they are, therefore, 
the resort of numberless pilgrims, who bring gifts or 
purchase something made by the monks — a cross, 
a carved spoon, tapers, and loaves of bread stamped 
with a sacred text. They gain much money also 
for the loan of these venerated pictures to a city 
where an epidemic prevails, or even to private 
families in which there is severe sickness. It is 
said that in Moscow, during the last cholera visita- 
tion, one such picture obtained nearly thirty thou- 
sand- rubles. There are no Mendicant Friars in 
Russia. All the monks have a life of comfort if no* 



TROITSA MONASTERY, 77 

of ease, and to many of the monasteries villas are 
attached where the superiors, and perhaps the 
whole body, pass the summer. 

A gleam of domes on a high plateau ; a sharp 
outline of towers against the sky ; and Troitsa rose 
before us, a second Kremlin, lordly in the illimit- 
able waste. 

Leaving the train we found ourselves in the 
midst of a throng of pilgrims setting towards the 
gates — the counterpart of those devout Russians 
whom, a few months before, we had seen at the 
shrines of the Holy Land ; old men with flowing 
beards and leaning on staves, some well attired, 
some in rags, but all apparently forgetful of every- 
thing but the sanctuary they approached ; women 
with the same meek faces their sisters bore to 
Bethlehem and to the sepulchre, and in whose 
coarse pelisses and dark handkerchiefs tied beneath 
the chin, not the least vanity or coquetry could be 
discerned. Crossing themselves, they passed under 
the arch ; the strangers from the West followed, 
ftnd all were within the sacred inclosure. 

The massive walls of Troitsa are nearly a- mile 
in circumference, and surmounted by a cloistered 



78 TROITSA MONASTERY. 

walk, with towers at their eight angles. Withisi 
their circuit, besides the buildings of the mon- 
astery proper, there are ten churches, the prin 
cipal of which is the cathedral, where lies St 
Sergius shrined in massive silver. Service was 
progressing there, and we made our way to the 
door, but could hardly enter for the crowed — a 
crowd as dense and varied in character as that 
which fills the Cathedral of the Assumption at 
Moscow. The chants and the responses of the 
priests came faintly down to us from the altar, 
and the fragrant incense was lost in the vile odor 
of sheep-skins and leather and cabbage exhaled by 
the peasants, among whom we were wedged. Re- 
treating, we gained the open court again, and sat 
down upon the steps of one of the churches where 
we could command a view of the w^hole scene. 

O, the wondrous beauty of the domes ! I had 
been enchanted with their Oriental form and color 
from our first sight of Russia, but here they were 
transfigured, and, blue, with golden stars, they 
lifted themselves above the towers and spires, and 
lay against the clear, soft sky, like azure blossoms 
unfolding in ethereal air. Their loveliness enrap- 
tured me, lifted me heavenward like a burst of 



TROITSA MONASTERY. 79 

Boul-stirring music at midnight — like the first per- 
fect day of spring, when all the buds are swelling, 
and blue-birds sway and sing in the elms — and it 
seemed as though any prayer uttered within their 
charmed circle would be granted. When I think 
of the New Jerusalem, its temples rise with 
domes like those of Troitsa that summer morn- 
ing! 

Presently service was over and forth came the 
worshippers. Some of them were evidently peo- 
ple of high degree, but by far the larger number 
were the poorest of the poor — peasants and men- 
dicants who had, perhaps, begged their way from 
the remotest provinces of the empire to gain the 
blessing of the Saint. A Russian devotee of the 
extremest class is twin brother to a dervish. He 
may be more -sincere and earnest in his nobler 
faith than the Mohammedan ; but, in his filthy 
rags, in his ignorant and slavish adherence to 
forms and traditions, and in the glory he esteems 
it to scorn all worldly decencies and delights, he 
is the same. As I looked about and saw these 
abjest creatures prostrating themselves, making the 
sign of the cross and drinkino; the water of the 
holy well discovered by St. Sergius, as if each 



80 TROITSA MONASTERY. 

drop were an assurance of salvation, I thought, 
should a being from a loftier sphere poise himself 
in the blue above and watch them at their devo- 
tions, and then wing his flight to Mecca and see 
the ceremonies around the Caaba and the well 
Zem-Zem, he would be at a loss which to con- 
demn most deeply for fanaticism and superstition. 
Yet, so reverent were they in feature and atti- 
tude, so apparently forgetful of all but God and 
the shrine, that the pity with which I regarded 
them w^as mingled with sympathetic admiration. 
Perhaps the Mongol Khan of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, whom St. Louis of France hoped to convert 
to Christianity through the agency of his monk, 
Rubruquis, had seen religion take this questionable 
shape among his Western neighbors, and it was 
therefore he replied to the envoy : " The Mongols 
are not ignorant of the existence of a God, and 
they love Him with all their hearts. There are 
as many and more ways of being saved than there 
are fingers on your hands. If God has given you 
the Bible, he has given us the Magi. Do you go 
your way and we will go ours." 

After visiting the sacristy, which is only inferiof 
in treasures to that of Moscow, and ascending the 




A MENDICANT 



TROITSA MONASTERY. 81 

tower to see the huge bell that could almost sum- 
mon the province to prayer ; after quaffing the clear 
water of the moss-grown well, and filling our hands 
with the little articles which the monks made haste 
to sell and the pilgrims to buy; with lingering looks 
at the domes, we passed under the arched gateway 
and trod again on common ground. 

At a little distance from the monastery, and on 
the borders of a still, dark lake, is the Convent of 
Gethsemane, and near it are catacombs for the her- 
mits of the Church. We drove thither through the 
fir woods and found the convent a plain log struc- 
ture under the strictest rule. 

Could it be that this forest was the home of an- 
chorites ? We asked to see their subterranean 
abodes, and forthwith a monk, giving each of us a 
lighted taper, and crossing himself and repeating 
some form of prayer, opened a small door and beck- 
oned us to follow him down the dark stairs beyond. 
If it were not that before me lies the half consumed 
taper which I brought away as a memento, the 
whole would seem to me now like a feverish dream. 
On we went till we reached a gallery lower than 
the lake, and where the walls were wet with its 
unwholesome damp. Out of it opened doors bound 



82 TROITSA MONASTERY. 

with iron bands, and above them small grated win- 
dows — the doors and windows of cells. At its 
extremity was a small chapel finished with brass. 
Daily service is held here, but it was then over and 
the lamp burned dimly before the solitary shrine. 

Beside the chapel w^as a miraculous well. The 
monk stooped down, and dipping up some of the 
water gave it to us to taste as if it had been a cup 
of nectar. The only miracle about it is that in that 
low, saturated soil the water does not rise and drown 
chapel and hermit together. 

As we turned back, we asked to see one of the 
cells. The monk replied that there was one which 
its occupant had left for an hour, and, crossing him- 
self, he undid the fastenings and bid us enter. It 
was a tomb in shape and size. A narrow^ slab with 
a dark blanket on it served for a bed. In one cor- 
ner was an image of the Virgin with a small lamp 
burning before it. On a shelf against the w'all lay 
an old leather-covered book that looked as though 
it might have come with the first monk from Mount 
Athos, and beside it hung a coarse black robe. 
All that indicated comfort was a tiny stove with a 
Uttle pile of wood, at the foot of the bed. What 
would the early recluses of KiefF have said to a 



TRQITSA MONASTERY. 83 

stove ? This poor furniture left just room enough 
to turn in, and the air was so heavy and sickly 
that the lamp burned blue, and breathing was 
difficult. Yet here a man, made in the image of 
God, had immured himself, and was slowly com- 
mitting suicide that he might win heaven ! 

Faint, from that atmosphere of the grave, we 
hastened to the upper day. How glorious seemed 
the soft blue sky and the sun flooding with his 
golden beams the still lake and the fir woods, where 
a light wind made music with the boughs ! Ah, 
thought I, if Christ, in whose name this monstrous 
service is rendered, could walk the earth again, 
how would He knock at that iron door and cry, 
" Come forth, O thou that art as dead ! Neither 
in dungeons nor yet at Jerusalem shall ye wor- 
ship the Father, but in spirit and in truth. Away 
with this mockery of holiness, and take thy place 
among his nobler saints in the bright, working 
world I " 



THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 



THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 



Now, by the Tower of Babel ! 

Was ever such a crowd ? 
Here Turks and Jews and Gypsies, 

There Persians haughty-browed; 
With silken-robed Celestials, 

And Frenchmen from the Seine, 
And Khivans and Bokhariotes — 

Heirs of the Oxus plain. 

Here stalk Siberian hunters ; 

There tents a Kirghiz clan 
By mournful-eyed Armenians 

From wave-girt Astrakhan ; 
And Russ and Pole and Tartar, 

And mounted Cossack proud — 
Now, by the Tower of Babel ! 

Was ever such a crowd? 

"VT'EARS ago, when there was but a post-road 
from Moscow to Nijni Novgorod, encamp- 
ments of Cossacks were stationed all the way to 



88 THE FAIR OF NIJNL 

protect merchants, going to and fro, from robbers 
and wolves. Now the train moves swiftly and 
quietly to its destination, and the brigands have fled 
to the provinces beyond the Volga, where as yet 
the whistle of the engine is unheard. 

The great Fair had been open for a fortnight, 
when, by the night express, we left Moscow to visit 
it. The cars were filled with people journeying 
thither — traders and sight-seers from various lands. 
The only town of importance through which we 
passed was Vladimir ; but In the darker night of 
the waning summer we only saw its lofty cathedral 
tower, dim against the northern sky. The region 
is one of the richest agricultural districts in Russia, 
but there was the same monotonous level until, at 
ten o'clock the next morning, Nijni rose before us, 
crowning with its Kremlin a bold bluff at the con- 
fluence of the Volga and the Oka — a bluff" that 
seemed a mountain after the flatness of the plain. 

From the station we drove at once to the H8tel 
Russie, in the old town, where we had fortunately 
secured rooms a week previous. This large hotel 
was a fair in itself. The first floor opened on tc 
the street, where a throng of vehicles of all sorts 
was coU'Stantly arriving and departing. The next 



THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 89 

floor was given up to dining-rooms, in which you 
miglit see all the costumes and hear all the lan- 
guages of Europe. Here, too, was an apartment 
where tanks of running water, bordered by grow- 
ing ferns and flowers, were filled with the famous 
sterlet of the Volga, swimming at ease, and ready 
to be served up at any moment to the epicurean 
guest. This fish is a small species of sturgeon, 
more delicate than the salmon in tint and flavor, 
and sent from its native rivers to all the cities of the 
Continent. Above were the bed-chambers with 
floors of wood or of brick ; uncarpeted, but airy 
and comfortable. 

Breakfast over, we walked up the steep, narrow 
ravine behind the house to the top of the bluff. 
Here is the old town. At our right was the Kremlin 
with its massive white-washed walls, thirty feet in 
height, within which are the arsenal, the barracks, 
the governor's house, and the cathedral where 
lies buried Minin, the peasant patriot of Nijni, who 
early in the seventeenth century roused Russia to 
free herself from the Poles. Two hundred years 
later, during the French invasion, his battle-flag 
was unfurled again and carried at the head of the 
army to inspire the people. His name is still a 



90 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 

watchword of loyalty. A noble obelisk stands here 
to perpetuate his fame, and the finest monument of 
Moscow, modeled in enduring bronze, represents 
him clad in his peasant's blouse, standing in a com- 
manding attitude and calling upon Prince Pojarski 
to rise and go forth with him for the redemption of 
their common country. 

At the foot of the bluff was modern Nijni, crowd- 
ing up to the Oka, here as large as the Volga, and 
so covered with all sorts of craft that it seemed but 
an extension of the town. Across it was a bridge 
of boats leading to the tongue of land between the 
two rivers on which are the streets of shops and 
bazaars that make up the city of the Fair. Beyond 
were the broad meadows, dotted with hay-stacks 
and stretching away to the horizon — a great allu- 
vial plain enriched by the yearly inundations of the 
Volga, which rolls its royal tide through their midst, 
and deigns to receive the Oka, on its way to the 
Caspian. For natural beauty there is no such view 
in Northern and Central Russia as this from the 
Kremlin of Nijni. Below us were the hurrying 
crowds of two continents ; and taking a last look 
at the striking landscape, we descended to mingle 
with them and see the interior of this gigantic ex 
change. 



THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 91 

Since the middle of the fourteenth century a fair 
has been held at Nijni, or in the neighborhood. 
For some time it was fixed at Makarief, a place 
farther down the Volga, arid it is still known to the 
Central Asiatics as the Fair of Makaria. The pro- 
ductions of the West come here by railway ; those 
of the East by the old channels of sledge and barge 
and caravan — indeed, some Asiatic travellers 
Bpend all the rest of the year in going to and fro. 
Nijni of itself has some forty thousand inhabitants. 
During the Fair it often counts two hundred thou- 
sand. The number present at any one time is still 
calculated by the amount of bread sold by the 
bakers, and perhaps a million different persons visit 
it during the two months of its continuance; while 
goods to the value of a hundred millions of rubles 
are bought and sold. Under Alexander I., the low, 
marshy point of land between the two rivers was 
prepared for building -with as much care as was the 
swamp of the Neva for the erection of St. Peters- 
burg. Beneath each street is a great sewer built ot 
ftone and cleansed several times a day by streams 
of water from the river. At regular intervals are 
small white towers containing staircases for descent 
mto the sewers, which are under the care of Cos- 



92 THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 

sacks. Around all is a canal, and, for further secu- 
rity against fire, a fine of twenty-five rubles is 
imposed for smoking anywhere except in these 
underground apartments. Along the streets are 
the bazaars containing; several thousand stalls filled 
with the lighter and more fanciful articles of mer- 
chandise, while the heavy goods are disposed in 
sheds and booths, or on boats and barges, or heaped 
upon matting on the ground. 

At the door of the hotel we took droskies for the 
Fair, a mile away. The street was filled with peo- 
ple on foot, and with carriages and drays and carts 
of every description going back and forth ; and as 
we whirled down the steep slope that leads to the 
bridge over the Oka, the crowd was so great that 
it was with difficulty we could make our way. 
Cossacks, as mounted police, with flashing eyes, and 
fiery horses which they sat like centaurs, were rid- 
ing up and down ; and, what with the strange cos- 
tumes and Iano;uao;es, the blindinor dust which the 
rising wind swept through the air, and the hum 
from the boats on the river, we began to under 
stand what is meant by the Fair of Nijni. 

Opposite the bridge and in the centre of the 
bazaar, is the house occupied by the governor dur 



THE FAIR OF NIJNI. 93 

Ing the Fair. From its top floated the Russian flag, 
while from the small church near, built by the 
merchants to commemorate the Czar's escape from 
the murderer Karokozoff, waved the Oriental 
banners of the Fair proper. Beneath the gov 
ernor's house we entered the bazaars, the first de- 
voted mainly to articles of dress and personal 
adornment. Here, each in his stall filled with 
shelves and cases covered with glass, the traders 
displayed their wares. First were Russians from 
beyond the Oural with various stones cut at the 
Works at Ekaterineburg, or by the artisans at their 
homes with a foot-lathe, in the evenings or on holi- 
days ; brooches and buttons and seals of perfect 
malachite, that vivid green overspread with mys- 
terious figures which made it the favorite amulet of 
antiquity ; crystals of amethyst, violet enough to 
be still a charm against wine ; and of aqua-marine, 
with a clear sea tint in shade or sun ; and of topaz, 
from the pale yellow to the orange-brown ; — beauti- 
ful gems which it is a shame for fashion to discard 
— and rose tourmalines, fair enough to be set in 
diamonds ; and pure white crystals, cut into globes 
for necklaces, or wrought into twelve-sided seals 
engraved with the signs of the zodiac ; transparent 



94 THE FAIR OF NIJNL 

as the cups the luxurious Roman emperors brought 
from India to be used on their feast-days, and cool 
as the balls these same voluptuaries gave the dainty 
Lollias and Julias to hold in their hands during the 
heats of summer ; and, rarest of all, paper-weights 
where upon a base of jasper were grouped the half- 
precious stones of Siberia, fashioned into fruit and 
leaves. Near by were men of Khorassan and 
Bokhara with ornaments and slender bars of lapis- 
lazuli, and turquoises from the old mine of Nisha- 
pur stuck by the dozen into rolls of wax ; while 
over against them stood Prussians from the Baltic 
with amber for the Chinese to burn as fragrant in- 
cense before their gods. Then came Persians from 
the south shore of the Caspian, displaying carpets 
and shawls and cashmeres — handsome, dark- 
bearded men clad in caftans of their own silk 
trimmed with gilt bands, and speaking French 
with ease to Europeans. From some of the stalls 
Armenians looked out with sad, and Jews with 
eager eyes ; while, beyond, were men of every race 
between Nijni and the Atlantic, with the varied 
fabrics and small wares of their respective coun- 
tries. 

Of course Russian manufactures were in the 



THE FAIR OF NIJNL 95 

ascendant. Here were piles of the silks and satins 
and tissues of Moscow, some of them woven with 
gold and silver threads to suit the markets of the 
East, and heaps of printed cloths, gay-colored, for 
the same buyers ; elegant articles of silver and of 
leather ; cutlery from Tula, and stores of samovara 
(tea-urns), which no family, however poor, can do 
without ; wooden trunks bound with bands of brass 
or iron, the bureau of the peasant and the recepta- 
cle for the humble trousseau of the bride on her 
wedding-day ; while among heavier things were 
stacks of boxes filled with beet-root suo-ar from cen- 
tral Russia, and long lines of kegs of caviare from 
the sturgeon fisheries of the Volga, the Kama, and 
the Oural. 

Many of the Russian merchants here belonged 
ibrmerly to the serf class, and by law the credit 
allowed them was limited to five rubles, but, on 
the security of their word alone, large sums were 
annually intrusted to them, for which they were 
expected to make large returns. Now, thanks to 
the enlightened wisdom of the present Emperor, 
they trade in their own right, and pay tribute to no 
master. Some of them were men of noble mien 
And of rare business ability, able to hold high place 
in any commercial centre of the world. 



96 THE FAIR OF NIJNL 

To this Fair crowd all the light trades and pio- 
fessions, — theatrical companies, bands of Tyrolese 
and Gypsies, fortune-tellers, showmen of every 
kind, peddlers, beggars by the hundred, from the 
black-robed monk soliciting alms for his monastery 
in the name of St. George or St. Sergius, to the 
wretched creature in tattered sheep-skin, who puts 
out his withered hand for a kopeck. Beyond the 
bazaars are restaurants, concert and dancing halls, 
rooms of meeting for merchants, and a multitude 
of small inns and tea-houses. 

What we saw of the Fair at our first visit be- 
longed largely to Europe. The next day we went 
farther, and found Asia. 



ASIA AT NIJNI. 



ASIA AT NIJNI. 



Give me that melon of Khiva, 

Luscious and round and fair ; — 
Its mate for the Lord of China 

Across the steppes they bear — 
And place on the tray beside it, 

Worthy of sheikh or khan, 
Peaches tliat grew in the gardens 

Of the golden Zerefshan. 

And a cup of Flowery Pekoe — 

Tea of the mandarins — 
Gathered in dewy morning, 

Just when the spring begins. 
(Keep for the peasant and Tartar, 

The bowls of the dark Bohea 
Plucked when the heats of summer 

With rank leaves load the tree.) 

Ah, what ravishing flavors ! 

Not the wine of the Rhine, 
Not of Tokay, nor the nectar 

Won from the Cyprian vine, 



100 ASIA AT NIJNL 

Nor Sicily's oranges rarest, 

Nor sweetest figs of Dalmatia, 
Rival tlie Flowery Pekoe 

And the spicy melons of Asia 1 

ra^HE most important article of merchandise at 
Nijni is tea. Of the fifteen million pounds of fine 
quality brought to Russia through Kiachta, some 
goes direct to Moscow, but the larger part finds its 
way to the Fair, whence it is distributed over the 
empire. Piled up in the warehouses were thou- 
sands of packages about two feet square — frames 
covered with skins in which the precious contents 
had come securely on boats and camels and sledges 
to Perm, and thence down the Kama and up the 
Volga to Nijni. 

Over the whole Russian Empire and Central 
Asia tea is the universal drink and luxury. Here 
was the delicate green tea for the dainty Moslems 
of the cities who would sip it in the booths, between 
their prayers, and when the effusion was exhausted, 
eat the leaves, holding them between the thumb 
and finger ; and brick tea for the mass of the peo- 
ple, and for the Kirghiz and Kalmuck rovers of the 
steppe — the refuse of the tea-crop, pressed into 
solid cakes, and in the towns mixed with milk and 



ASIA AT NIJNl. 101 

drank from bowls into which bread is dipped the 
while, and in the nomad yourts boiled in great caul- 
drons and seasoned with mutton fat and salt and 
parched millet, or whatever the inmates may have 
to make it more nutritious ; while if they be Kal- 
mucks, before any of the family fills his Chinese 
wooden bowl a spoonful or two will be thrown to 
the four winds for the gods. Then there was the 
great bulk of teas for Russia proper, — those pure 
black teas raised in northern China and brought 
fresh and unimpaired to the market ; teas some of 
which are sold at twelve rubles the pound ; almost 
colorless when drawn, but possessing an exquisite 
flavor and bouquet, and stirring the blood like wine. 
Here, too, was rhubarb, of which China sends an- 
nually through Kiachta some half million pounds ; 
and silk in curious bales, and robes embroidered in 
brilliant hues. But few Chinese merchants were 
seen, Russians and Tartars saving them the long 
journey. 

Next to tea the most important article of traffic 
here is the iron of Siberia. Under a mile-long gal- 
lery by the river, and even upon a sand-bank which 
the falling waters had left bare, it was heaped up 
in every form from solid bars and sheets and rails 



102 ASIA AT NIJNI. 

to cauldrons for the wandering tribes, and sniail 
household utensils for the cabins of the peasants. 
Still skirting the river were warehouses filled with 
cotton ; pyramids of mill-stones from the Oural ; 
great piles of rags collected from every quarter for 
the paper-makers (think what the rags of eastern 
Europe and Asia must be !) ; with hides from the 
steppes, and grain from the productive fields of the 
South. 

Most attractive was the store of furs, from the 
coarse, despised wolf-skin which you could buy for 
a handful of kopeks, to the tiny, fine, glossy sable, 
trophy of the skill and daring of some native hun- 
ter on Lake Baikal or the Amoor ; valued now at 
two hundred rubles and likely to be purchased to 
deck the robe of some proud Osmanli at Constan- 
tinople, — for sables, like diamonds, are prized the 
world over, and captivate alike the Chinese manda- 
rin, the Turkish pasha, the European prince, and 
the luxurious American. Near to these were felts 
both fine and coarse, for hats and blankets and win- 
ter boots ; and rugs of Siberian wool for carpets and 
sledge-covers. At a little distance a broad space 
was covered with timber from beyond the Oural, 
ivhich had floated hither m rafts and barges ; and, 



a 



ASIA AT NIJNL 103 

close to the water, lying in piles on the ground or 
waiting to be removed from the boats, were tons of 
dried fish from the Caspian and the lower Volga — 
principal food of the poorer classes during the 
Church fasts which occupy one third of the year. 

A large and growing trade with Khiva, Bokhara, 
and Khokand centres at Nijni. Peter the Great 
saw the importance of these oases in the Tartar 
desert, and opened roads from the lower Volga to 
the Oxus which remain in use to this day. From 
five to six thousand camels are employed in the 
caravans which leave Bokhara during the spring for 
different points on the Russian frontier, especially 
Orenburg distant eleven hundred miles, and where 
they arrive in two months' time. From thence 
their goods are transported to the Volga, by which 
they reach Nijni. 

And what do they bring to the Slavonian mart, 
these Moslems of " the noble Bokhara " and its 
sister states ? 

Wheat and barley and rice from their irrigated 
fields ; silk and cotton in bales, the latter of fine 
quality but not wholly free from seeds, which are 
laboriously separated from the fibre by the finger? 
of the women ; sheep-skins and countless bales of 



104 ASIA AT NIJNI. 

wool, both of goats and of sheep ; the jet-blacky 
curly lamb-skins of Karakool which are only pro- 
duced in a small territory between Bokhara and 
the Oxus, and which, like rare furs, always com- 
mand their price in gold. The handsomest go to 
Teheran and Constantinople, and the black, white, 
and gray skins, which make the hats of ordinar}' 
Persians and Tartars, as well as most of those 
which under the name of " Astrakhan "go to Eu- 
rope and America, are quite inferior, and from a 
different locality. Then there are striped and em- 
broidered kalats from Khiva — garments cut like 
dressing-gowns and highly prized by the Tartars 
of Russia ; and gay silken shawls and handker- 
chiefs of the soft, loosely woven fabrics of Bokhara. 
Their dried fruits are unrivaled — peaches, grapes 
and apricots from the gardens of the Jaxartes and 
the Zerefshan ; and, if it be in season, melons from 
the banks of the Oxus — those delicious green and 
yellow Urgendji melons whose fame has gone even 
to Pekin, where they are sometimes sent as a gift to 
the emperor, and which, in Russia, are often ex- 
changed for their bulk in sugar when sugar is bar- 
tered at a ruble a pound. 

A part of this Asiatic merchandise is sold for 




ASIA AT NIJNI. 105 

money, but most of it is exchanged for manufac 
tured articles at great profit to the Russians ; for 
iron kettles, cutlery, large copper samovars, jew- 
elry, coral beads and various trinkets ; leather for 
water skins, broadcloth, white muslins, chintzes, 
velvet, gold thread for embroidery, bright colored 
shawls and ribbons, thread, and sugar, — but neither 
guns nor ammunition, for Russia will not furnish 
these to her turbulent neighbors. The goods are 
dispatched from Nijni to Orenburg, and early in 
November the caravans set out on their return 
journey. 

Most of the Kirghizes who conduct them stay on 
the frontier, but here and there in the throng 
was one dark and stalwart, with bright eyes, flat 
and almost beardless face, and clumsy motions ; 
wearing a felt cap, a shabby kalat girt about the 
loins, and full trousers thrust into rough boots, who 
surveyed the scene with the wondering curiosity of 
a child. Possibly he had no errand there but to 
see the Franks ; more likely he had brought for sale 
some of the sturdy horses of the steppe. As I 
looked at these men and thought of the long march 
they would soon begin across the desert wastes with 
their infrequent, brackish springs ; exposed to the 



106 ASIA AT NIJNI. 

mirage that shines but to betray, to the sand-storms 
with their suffocating breath, to the terrible snow- 
^ hurricanes that blind and overwhelm, and, yet 
worse, to the fierce attacks of plundering Turko- 
mans, their heavy Mongol forms and faces were in- 
vested with a kind of heroic dignity, and I w^ould 
fain have spoken to them in their rude Turkish 
tongue, and bid them God speed on their perilous 
way. 

There is another manufacture here to which 
these nomads contribute. Those piles of boxes 
filled with stearine candles are the product of the 
tallow of their sheep, which in flocks of many 
thousands they drive across the steppes to the 
Siberian frontier, and from thence to Ekaterine- 
burg, where they are killed and converted into 
tallow. 

Along the miles of wharves were many Tartars 
carrying merchandise to and from the boats and 
the shore — now bars and sheets of iron from the 
Oural ; now rolls of leather from Kazan ; now 
bales of the cotton of Khiva ; now skins filled with 
wine from the vineyards of Tiflis ; now sacks of 
madder from Bokhara. Some were clad in caftans 
Df blue cotton, some in coats of sheep-skin, with 



ASIA AT NIJNL 107 

turbans on their heads, or hats of light felt, or caps 
with a rim of fur. The more devout among them 
said their prayers daily in the mosque which rises 
beside the Armenian chapel and the handsome 
Russian church beyond the bazaars, and they 
formed part of the multitude that slept every 
night on the barges and boats of the rivers. 

At evening the city was given up to diversion. 
Myriad lights gleamed through the streets and 
along the Oka, whose placid waters reflected dis- 
tinctly every object upon the shore. Colored lan- 
terns lent their glow to the grounds ; music and 
the hum of voices filled the air, but there was no 
open rioting or confusion ; the police were every- 
where ; the Cossacks paced slowly up and down 
the bridge, and in momentary lulls the peeping 
of frogs was heard, showing that civilization has 
not yet wholly reclaimed the ancient marsh. 

The city was given up to diversion, but mainly 
for Europeans. The Asiatics keep here the prim- 
itive customs of Bokhara and the steppe ; and, 
when night fell, they lay down to rest by their 
bales, or crept into boats and barges, or stretched 
themselves on mats along the ground, and slept 
like children, oblivious of care, and at one with 
destiny. 



108 ASIA AT NIJNL 

From this throng of various nations two indi* 
viduals come vividly to mind : the one, a Bokha- 
riot, whom we saw repeatedly near the Oriental 
stalls, an observer rather than an actor — his Tar 
tar features softened into a noble, serene melan 
choly — the dignity of an emir in the pois-e of his 
turbaned head — and, as he surveyed the bustling 
Europeans, his thoughts busy, I fancied, with the 
waning fortunes of his race. The other was a 
young Russian girl belonging to a band of singers, 
whose office it was to solicit money from the by- 
standers when the songs were done. It was evi- 
dently new work for her. Her face was like a 
spring flower, fair and sweet, and she blushed and 
trembled as she held out her hand, — a woman 
who should have been shrined in some happy 
home, instead of being the gaze of restaurant and 
saloon. How fares the Tartar by the distant 
Oxus? And what fate has overtaken the inno- 
cent maiden ? 

The Fair of Nijni is an institution for Asia, and 
will endure and grow until better means of com- 
munication throw open the interior of that vast 
continent to the commerce of the world. Now, 
from the Oural to the Pacific, it is through th« 



ASIA AT NIJNI. 109 

Oiedium of caravans and fairs that business is 
transacted ; and goods are bartered rather than 
sold. The hunter on the Amoor gives his sables 
and fox-skins; the Kirghiz his flocks and herds; 
and the Tartar of the south his fruit and silk and 
cotton for the products of Europe. Nay, even 
the nomads of remote and thinly populated dis- 
tricts have their fairs of the steppe, to which they 
repair on horseback, dressed in their best, and 
gravely bargain for a few trifles, returning with 
them to their tents. But gradually, as intercourse 
becomes freer, this state of things will pass away. 
With every year the West gains upon the East. 
Deserts and mountains are no longer impassable 
barriers. Already Russia is planning a railway 
across Siberia, and another from the Caspian to 
the Aral Sea ; and the day will come when the 
great Fair of Nijni will be as much a thing of 
the past, as is that wonder of naturalists, the mam- 
moth of the Lena. 



KAZAN. 




KAZAN. 



Kazan looks down from the Volga wall, 

Bright in the darkest weather ; 
And ihe Christian chime and the Moslem call 

Sound from her towers together. 

Shrine of the Golden Horde was she ; 

Boast of the proud Bokhara ; 
And her fame was wafted over the sea, 

And sung in the far Sahara. 

Woe to her Faith and her turbaned Lord 1 
The Cross and the Russ were stronger ; 

Her splendors now are the Czar's reward. 
And her Khans are kings no longer I 

Yet still she looks from the Volga wall, 

Bright in the darkest weather ; 
And the Christian chime and the Moslem call 

Sound from her towers together. 

"TTTITH the novelty and interest of the Fair 

unexhausted, we left Nijni for Kazan, three 

hundred miles east. A furious wind was blowing, 
8 



114 KAZAN. 

as under the high bluff of the old town "v^e wound 
along the roughly paved street to the Volga side 
— a wind that filled the air with clouds of sand, 
obscuring the view, and recalling the story of 
the hurricane which raged at Moscow when tht 
pretender, Dimitri, approached the Kremlin ; an 
awful blast whose whirling dust enveloped the 
false Czar and his attendants, and made the peo- 
ple, stricken w4th suspicious terror at the sight, 
cross themselves and cry out, " God keep us from 
harm!" 

It was one of the boats of the " Volga and Cas- 
pian Steamship Company " in which we had taken 
passage, and we were no sooner on board than she 
was under way. Several hundred steamers pl^ 
the Volga between Tver and Astrakhan, begin- 
ning with those of very light draught for the uppei 
stream, and growing larger as the river deepens. 
They have neither saloon nor state-room on deck, 
but, below, a cabin and a small apartment for 
ladies. Our captain was one of that race of born 
sailors, a Finn, and spoke tolerable English, which 
he had picked up on a voyage he once made to 
New York. We were the only " first-class " pas- 
sengers, and our meals were daintily served hv 
the ladies' cabin. 



KAZAN. 115 

The Volga, at Nijni, is about three fourths of 
a mile wide, and as its average fall is but a little 
over three inches to the mile, it flows with a cahn, 
equable current until it loses itself in the Caspian, 
eighty feet below the level of the ocean. In win- 
ter it is a sledge-road, a mass of ice from the 
Valdai Hills to Astrakhan ; in summer, covered 
with countless boats that carry the products of the 
East and South to St. Petersburg and the Baltic. 
A little below Nijni the bold bluff slopes rapidly 
to the water, and thenceforth, throughout its whole 
extent, the banks are comparatively low and mo- 
notonous. 

The wild wind had brought an autumn rain, 
fine and chill. The region through which we 
passed is very productive, yet, bare of harvests 
and baked in the summer sun, it presented little 
of interest as seen from the deck throuo-h the 
storm. Now and then large barges passed us 
towed by steamers, and loaded with dried fish 
from Astrakhan, which, at a little distance, re- 
sembled piles of wood. At night the boat an- 
chored near the shore, and we made ourselves as 
comfortable as we might upon the divans and 
cushions of the cabin — beds and bedding being 
things unknown on the boats of the Volga. 



116 KAZAN. 

Morning found the rain still falling ; the shores 
flat and noteless ; and laden boats and barges beat- 
ing up the gray, slow-moving river. A 'little 
after noon the clouds began to give place to clear 
kies, and at three o'clock we reached a small 
settlement on the left bank, and saw, crowning a 
high ridge, the domes and towers of Kazan. 

This Tartar city, capital of the kingdom founded 
in the middle of the thirteenth century by Batu 
Khan, grandson of the great Ghengis, derives its 
name, so says one of its own historians, from the 
golden kettle (kazan) which a servant of the first 
Khan let fall into the little river, Kazanka, when 
dipping up water for his thirsty master. By this 
hill the fierce Golden Horde halted in their advance 
from the East, and laid the foundations of a lordly 
state. Behind them was Asia, already theirs ; be- 
fore them Europe, trembling at their approach. 
On their fleet horses they overran Muscovy, plun- 
dering and despoiling as they went ; and it was 
gravely proposed in a council of their rulers, to 
destroy every town and city of the Unbelievers 
and turn the whole land into a pasture for their 
flocks ! But Mohammed was not to reign in Russia, 
After centuries of fear and oppression and war. 



KAZAN, 117 

John the Terrible, the last powerful sovereign of 
the race of Rurik, besieged Kazan and took it by 
springing a mine beneath the walls. The Tartars 
made a heroic resistance ; and hard and cruel as 
this monarch was, and miserably as his people had 
suffered, he is said to have wept when he forced 
the gates and saw the heaps of dead bodies that 
blocked the streets and courts of the beleaguered 
city. A few years later, the Tartar kingdom of 
Astrakhan yielded to his arms, and thenceforth 
those who remained of these dark-eyed followers 
of the Prophet were humble subjects of the Czars. 
We took droskies at the river side and drove up 
the long ascent to the town. The broad, sandy, 
uneven road was filled with vehicles going to and 
fro, — droskies and carts laden with merchandise, 
most of them driven by Tartars in white felt hats, 
sheep-skin coats, high boots, and wide trousers. On 
our left was a huge pyramidal monument of stone 
to the memory of the Muscovites who fell in the 
siege. Few buildings were to be seen, for the 
Volga sometimes makes a lake of the whole space 
between the shore and the hill. Reaching the 
summit, we turned into the broad street, lined with 
bazaars and stately buildhigs, which runs along its 



118 KAZAN. 

brow, and were soon at home in a spacious new 
hotel kept by a Finn, whose beds were more luxu- 
rious and whose table more inviting than any wo 
found afterwards in Russia. 

An hour's repose and we went forth to see the 
town. At the crest of the hill, on the ruins of the 
old Tartar fortifications, the Russians have built 
their Kremlin, — one massive gateway still standing 
of the city of the Khans. Within the walls is the 
cathedral, begun soon after the siege, and to com- 
memorate the victory ; and near by is the convent, 
of a little later date, in whose chapel is a copy of 
the miraculous picture of the Virgin now shrined 
in the Kazan Church at St. Petersburg. The 
chapel copy wears a crown of diamonds, the gift 
of the Empress Catherine. The face is perhaps 
the most pleasing one of all the Virgins of the 
Church, and under the name of " Our Lady of 
Kazan," it is adored from the White Sea to the 
Euxine. Service was progressing as we stood in 
the chapel, and the space before the altar was filled 
with nuns in high close caps, and long black veils, 
while on the wall behind them was painted a hor- 
rible representation of the torments of hell, — yel 
low wreathing fl.ames, into which devils with sharp 



KAZAN. 119 

forks were thrusting the condemned. If this was 
their thought of the future, and only the Church 
could save, the wonder was, not that the Sisters 
were so many, but rather that any woman of Kazan 
was left in the outside world. After prayers we 
went into the convent, an ancient building in whose 
unadorned rooms the younger jiuns were embroid- 
ering sacred banners and vestments, with crowns 
and Crosses and wreaths of flowers, in bright floss 
and thread of gold and silver. Their fair, broad 
faces wore an anxious look, and they bent over 
their frames as if each stitch made them surer of 
heaven. The afternoon sun looked in at the high, 
uncurtained windows ; the swelling domes of the 
cathedral shone in the upper blue ; but not one 
raised her eyes from her work, or spoke above her 
breath in reply to the directions of her teacher; 
and it was with a sigh of compassion that I stepped 
over the worn threshold into the free air. 

From her commanding height Kazan looks al- 
ways towards Asia. The trade of Siberia pours 
through her streets. Her manufactures of cloth 
and leather and silk and soap, go east rather than 
west for a market. Her university gives special 
attention to Oriental languages and literature ; nay, 



120 KAZAN. 

nearly one fifth of her seventy thousand inhab- 
itants are of Tartar race and creed, and turn to 
Bokhara rather than to St. Petersburg for guidance 
and inspiration. 

Below the crest of the hill is a narrow sheet of 
water, the Kaiban Lake. On its shores is the work- 
ing town of shops and factories, and beyond is the 
Tartar quarter, into which we drove in the late 
afternoon. It was difiicult to believe we were in 
cold and Orthodox Russia. The houses wore the 
colors of Damascus ; minarets rose before us tipped 
with upright, glittering crescents attached by a 
single horn ; dogs with the true bark and bound of 
Stamboul rushed forth as we passed; fat, rosy 
children, in queer caps and trousers, peeped from 
the courts ; a solitary woman went by, attired in a 
long robe, and drawing her shawl over her face like 
a veil, so that only one eye was free to regard the 
strangers ; the shoemakers' shops were filled with 
boots and slippers of bright morocco leather, some 
of them gayly worked with gold ; the merchants 
waited with Cairene indifference our pleasure to 
buy ; and, to complete the illusion, from a near 
minaret came the cry, " To prayer ! to prayer ! 
There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his 



KAZAN. 121 

Prophet ! " We had just come from a Russian 
church, whose worshippers crossed themselves de- 
voutly before the image of Our Lady of Kazan ; 
and as the Tartars, without shrine or picture, ad- 
dressed their prayers to the one God, I saw how, 
from their point of view, they might call their 
Christian neighbors idolaters, and scorn to yield the 
Faith of their fathers. 

Quiet, but alien, these people dwell among the 
Russians. Has a youth among them a studious 
turn ? He goes to the colleges of Bokhara. 
Would one see the world? He journeys to Con- 
stantinople ; possibly to the holy cities of Arabia. 
The West and the Franks have no part in their 
love or their ambition. As a race they are comely. 
Robust in form without being stout, their motions 
are easy and of a certain dignity ; their complex- 
ions are dark and fresh, their features regular, their 
eyes of black or grayish-blue shaded by heavy 
lashes, and in them there is often a patient sadness 
that belongs not to their blood, but is born of their 
fortunes and the resignation taught by their relig- 
ion. Their lives are simple and frugal. They are 
all taught in their own schools to read and write 
and cast accounts, and their honesty and sobriety 



).22 KAZAN. 

make them sought as servants, clerks, and crafts 
men. In the country they are small farmers, and 
almost every house has its hives of bees. Wine 
being forbidden, they make of their honey a kind 
of mead, and prepare their tea like the Tartars of 
the steppe. Their unleavened cakes still bake 
upon the hearth like those Sarah kneaded for the 
angels, and their greatest delicacy is parched corn 
— perhaps the same which Boaz gave to Ruth - — 
boiled in milk or fried in butter. All delight in 
tobacco, and as there are no Wahabee Zelators 
near to scent its odor and bring them to trial, their 
pipes are always in use or worn at their girdles. 
Few of them cumber their dwellings with beds or 
chairs. The cushioned divan, or the bench spread 
with mats of felt, suits them better than all the 
elaborate upholstery of Europe. Proud of their 
race and their traditions, they cling fondly to the 
past ; and although the Government has established 
churches and schools among them whose services 
and instructions are in their own tongue, they hear 
the mass and learn the lessons, but are as far from 
conversion as ever. Yet they must be affected by 
the life and progress of the nation, and doubtless 
with every year they will grow more like their 
conquerors. 



KAZAN. 123 

On our way back to the hotel we drove a few 
versts east of the city to see a spot whose pictu- 
resque, woody ravines have gained it the name of 
the Russian Switzerland. It was a ridge like that 
upon which Kazan is built, but tree-covered and 
broken into miniature hills and valleys. From its 
crest we looked over the broad country beyond — 
a rolling region, with few habitations visible ; here 
and there a thick grove, perhaps of the oaks of this 
province carefully preserved by the Government for 
ship-building ; while about us, and crowning lower 
slopes, were forests of white birches growing strong 
and tall as in their native air ; best of trees to the 
Russian — their bark tanning his leather, their leaves 
giving him a yellow dye, their sap furnishing him a 
kind of wine, their wood making his household 
utensils, and as dried splinters and fuel supplying 
him with candles and saving him from the rigors of 
winter. 

A golden glow suffused the landscape, and turn- 
ing west again we saw the sun go down in splendor 
with an orb above it, a second sun. A chill wind 
sprang up, tossing the thin foliage of the birch 
trees, sighing through the pines, and dying away in 
mournful murmurs on the horizon of Asia. The 



124 KAZAN. 

sunset glory faded, and in its room appeared a 
cloud that spread rosy wings and floated like a 
bright bird over the dark and sluggish river. 

Alighting in the wide, modern street, Russian 
officers erect and haughty, went to and fro ; Rus- 
sian ladies, in the costumes of Paris, drove or saun- 
tered by ; the roll of the evening drum came from 
the barracks, and there was nothing but the name 
to remind us that we were in the city of the 
Khans. 



THE VOLGA, TO SAMAEA. 



THE VOLGA TO SAMAEA. 



The people, the Russian people, 

God grant their night is past, 
And the gloom of their weary waiting 

Lost in the dawn at last ! * 

From the Baltic to the Okhotsk Sea 

The stars have heard their wail, 
And the steppe-winds borne their prayers to heaven 

That Right may yet prevail. 

The people, the patient people, 

They are the strength, the power, — 
Their hearts are true to the Russian Land 

Though darkest clouds may lower. 
It was Yermak, the valiant Cossack, 

Who broad Siberia won ; 
Through Minin, peasant of Nijni, 

Were the tyrant- Poles undone ; 

And Archangel's Lomondsoff, 

Child of the common throng, 
A fisher-lad, was first to shape 

The soundinc[ Russ in sons:* 



128 THE VOLGA TO SAMARA. 

The people, the trusting people, 

God grant their night is past, 
And the gloom of their weary waiting 

Lost in the dawn at last 1 

TN a larger boat we reembarked the next morning. 
Tlie deck was crowded with soldiers going to 
distant barracks, and with Tartars, recHning, after 
the fashion of the East, upon mats of felt or skin, 
but we were still the only occupants of the saloon. 
The sky, though cloudless, had a grayish hue, and 
a strong cold wind blew with uninterrupted fury 
from the north — the sirocco of the Pole. The low 
banks were occasionally varied by bluffs covered 
with trees, but sometimes for miles together the 
widening river hardly allowed us a glimpse inland. 
At intervals a church with its glittering dome rose 
to view, making the Russians cross themselves 
devoutly and the Tartars relapse into still deeper 
apathy; or we passed a serf village, always the 
same assemblage of barn-like huts before the dreary 
background of interminable pines. 

I never could look at them without picturing the 
life within, — the cracks in the walls stuffed with 
moss, the low smoky ceiling, the table and benches 
fashioned with a hatchet, the chest containing the 




CO 

< 
H 

CO 



THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 129 

few family treasures, the bowls and spoons of birch 
wood which serve for the cabbage soups and the 
fish stews of the fast-days, the steaming foul air 
of the long winter nights when all the family, 
wrapped in their garments of sheep-skin or coarse 
woolen cloth, lie huddled together on the top of the 
great brick stove or its adjoining shelf, while per- 
haps a calf or a pig is shut in a pen below. So, 
during the snows of winter, the wandering Kir- 
ghizes of the plains crowd their felt-covered yourts, 
and in summer both alike take to the ground and 
ask only the shelter of the sky. , The peasants 
have a proverb, " With plenty of bread it is para- 
dise under the pines," and I always ended by trust- 
ing they had at least an abundance of food, and 
remembering that a better day has dawned for 
them. 

An isolated cabin was rarely seen. Drifting 
snows, the great uninhabited spaces between the 
towns, the wolves and bears which infest some re- 
gions, and a feeling of individual weakness born 
of their long social degradation, combine to keep 
the peasants massed in villages. A deeper cause, 
perhaps, is their Oriental ove of patriarchal rule 
and tribal association. 

9 



130 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 

When at the close of the sixteenth century serf- 
dom was introduced, it was perhaps a necessary 
evil. For more than two hundred years the Tar- 
tars had ravaged the country, and through their 
tyranny and example the nation was in danger of 
becoming nomadic. The cities were thronged and 
there was a constant migration of northern peasants 
to tlie warm plains of the South. Serfdom, making 
them stationary, insured quiet and the cultivation 
of the soil. But what woes it brought to the poor 
rustic, forced to toil without hope of change on the 
field where he was born, with flogging or banish- 
ment as the penalty of his lord's displeasure ; to 
whom the law allowed only a credit of five 
rubles, and who, in some provinces, was obliged 
even to yield his bride, on her wedding night, to 
the pleasure of his master ! Happily humanity is 
often better than its institutions. Of course there 
were here and there indulgent proprietors whose 
serfs engaged in enterprises of their own and won 
wealth and name and fame, but these were the 
rare exceptions. In general, if a serf accumulated 
a little money he dared not let it be known ; and 
nothing is more common than to find such secreted 
coins buried in the ground of old hamlets. No 



THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 131 

^on^er the brave, philanthropic Alexander II. on 
coming to the throne made it his first care to re- 
move these burdens that pressed so heavily on half 
of his subjects. Yet so great was the fear of a re- 
turn to wandering habits that, though the serf be- 
came at once personally free, the process of acquir- 
ing land was to be gradual ; and to induce him to 
remain where he was, upon his payment to the 
proprietor of one fifth of the sum required for seven 
acres of land, the Government paid the remaining 
four fifths, charging him six per cent, interest upon 
the loan for forty-nine years. In addition to this, 
he could not leave the community without forfeit- 
ing his right to the common lands. There is no 
longer solicitude regarding the effect of the change. 
Already under this arrangement three fourths of 
the former serfs are land-owners, and there is con- 
stant improvement in their manner of living. They 
have the faults and vices of a subject race, but, 
with them, qualities of a noble manhood which 
education and opportunity will display. Ignorant 
and intoxicated with the idea of liberty, at first 
many of them were idle, and, like children, 
t\ioughtless of the future. A gentleman of Moscow 
told me this story of his experience in the province 
df old Novgorod two years after the emancipation. 



132 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 

" I had contracted with the inhabitants of a cer- 
tain village to furnish a large quantity of wood cut 
in the forest and made ready for transportation to 
the city. When I went among them I found they 
had been idle, and were in great distress because 
their taxes were unpaid, and the sheriff had threat- 
ened to sell all their effects the next morning at 
public auction. They pressed into my house 
weeping and lamenting, and the patriarch ex- 
plained that their debt was eleven hundred silver 
rubles, towards which they could raise but two 
hundred. 

" ' But,' said I, ' if I see the sheriff and ad- 
vance part of this money for you and stay the sale, 
will you go to work ? ' 

" ' With the first fall of snow that we can take 
our sledges to the woods,' replied the gray-haired 
father of the village. The next morning I drove 
some fifteen versts to see the sheriff; explained 
their situation to him, and, by advancing five hun- 
dred rubles towards their taxes, persuaded him to 
wait for the rest. 

" ' But you'll regret it,' said he ; ' they are an 
idle, good-for-nothing set, and you'll never ge* 
your money back.' 



THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 133 



(« 



I had confidence in the people, however, and 
when I returned and told them the result they 
crowded about me and kissed my hand and blessed 
me with tears in their eyes, while they again 
promised to begin work with the first snow. Then 
they sent me little presents — a few eggs, a fish, a 
bowl of meal — anything they could spare from 
their narrow stores. For some days the weather 
continued mild ; then one evening the snow began 
to fall and the next morning the ground was 
covered to the depth of six inches. My house was 
away from the village, and after breakfast I said 
to my companion, a young man from Moscow : 
' Now we will ride over to the woods and see 
about the work.' 

" He shook his head, and exclaimed, as we started 
off, ' There 's not the least use in going. Not a 
Boul will stir.' 

" ' Wait and see,' said I. ' I have kept faith 
with them, and I believe they will with me.' 

" At the first point where we should have seen 
them we halted, but no one was in sight. ' There,* 
shouted my friend, ' I told you so I ' 

" ' Wait a little longer,' said I, and we drove on 
till at a turn in the road, lo I the whole popula- 



134 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 

tion, young and old, men and women, boys and 
girls, with sledges and axes and hatchets, on theii 
way to the woods ! They worked steadily ; ful- 
filled their contract with me, and soon discharged 
their debt. When I told Count Pushkin about it 
afterwards, he hstened with tearful eyes and said, 
' Ah ! Our people are truthful. We shall yet be 
proud of the Russians I ' " 

In spite, however, of their long subjection and 
ignorance, it is from this class that some of the 
most illustrious Russians have sprung. Kozma 
Minin, the patriot, through whose efforts the coun- 
try was freed from the Poles, was a peasant of 
Nijni Novgorod. Nikita Demidoff, ancestor of the 
princely family of that name, whose discovery and 
development of the mines of the Oural added in- 
calculable wealth to the empire, was a serf of the 
province of Tula. Michael Lomonosoff, poet and 
savan, who discarded the foreign languages of the 
court and the schools, and made the rich, flowing, 
vernacular Russ the language of science and litera- 
ture, was a poor fisherman of Archangel. Re- 
membering men like them, it was always with pro- 
found interest that I looked at these simple folk 
and their humble abodes — a race whose capacities 



TEE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 135 

are yet unknown, and who may one day lead the 
world. 

Some fifty miles below Kazan we came to the 
mouth of the Kama, — longest and most important 
of the two hundred rivers that flow into the Volga. 
From its source in the Oural it has a course of 
more than twelve hundred miles, and bears on its 
tide the products of the mines, the leather and tal- 
low furnished by the herds of the steppes, and the 
furs and teas of far Siberia and China. On its 
high, bleak plains rises Perm, nearest town, of 
note, to Asia, — Perm, through whose streets goes 
the great road to Siberia, and where exiles bid fare- 
well to Europe and to hope. During the summer 
nearly forty thousand men are employed upon its 
boats and rafts which, at Nijni, exchange the com- 
modities of the East for those of the West. 

The Volga grows perceptibly larger after receiv- 
ing its great tributary, and on its broad current we 
went swiftly down to Simbirsk, capital of the gov- 
ernment of that name and point of export for the 
wheat of the rich provinces of Pensa and Tambov 
which lie behind it. Here we rested for several 
hours during the night, which ^vas dark and cloudy, 



136 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA, 

with a chill, mournful wind blowing over the river. 
We slept again upon the plush-spread divans of the 
saloon with cloaks and shawls for wrappings, while 
the Russians were camped in the cabin and under 
awnings upon deck, with blankets and huge feather 
pillows in chintz or leather covers. It was amus- 
ing to see tall, stiff, uniformed officers bustling 
about with bed-clothes in one hand and a bag of 
tea and sugar in the other, calling for hot water 
and arranging for an unoccupied corner. "Si- 
chas" (directly), was the invariable response of the 
waiters ; but here, as elsewhere in the country, they 
seemed to have little idea of time, and if you saw 
them again within an hour you were fortunate. 

At dawn the steamer was under wav, and as 
breakfast was brought in we reached Stavropol, a 
town of the last century, built to gain control over 
a horde of Kalmucks established there, and having 
some four thousand inhabitants. Here the Volga 
turns sharply to the east, and running thus for 
forty miles, bends south and then west again, mak- 
ing a circuit of a hundred miles. The land it 
incloses is the property of the Orloff family, fa- 
mous for the partiality of the Empress Catherine 
Bnd for the great diamond in the Imperial sceptre , 



THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA, 137 

jvith which Gregory OrlofF bought, for a time, the 
favor of liis splendid and capricious mistress. 

At one o'clock we reached the farthest point of 
the bend and were at Samara, a town at the con- 
fluence of the Samara with the Volga, farther east 
than Bagdad and almost in the longitude of Tehe- 
ran. Here we proposed to spend a day, and, going 
ashore, we were conducted by the German agent of 
the steamship company through the broad, roughly- 
paved streets to a hotel which nomads and western 
Europeans might have united in devising and con- 
ducting. It was a great rambling structure with 
high, empty rooms, passages that led nowhere, and 
handsome staircases and doors of mahogany set in 
bare and plaster-crumbling walls. There were no 
beds ready — nothing but leather-covered benches 
and low, cushioned divans, and our meals, though 
palatable, were spoiled by being brought through 
the windy halls. Samara was founded nearly three 
hundred years ago as a frontier post against the 
Asiatic tribes. Its fortifications have long ago dis- 
appeared, but as the largest grain market on the 
Volga, and the port of Orenburg, it is one of the 
most important towDS on the river. For Orenburg, 
three days' journey to the east, is on the line of 



138 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA, 

Asia, and the rendezvous of the caravans from 
Bokhara and the Kirghiz steppes. In her bazaars 
they discharge their goods, and from thence they 
return laden with the products and manufactures 
of the West. There, too, the Government has 
founded a military school for two hundred pupils, 
more than half of whom are to be selected from the 
sons of Tartar and Kirghiz chiefs ; and thus it is a 
point of influence for the whole interior. 

After dinner we drove out several versts to see 
an establishment for the cure of pulmonary diseases 
by the drinking of mare's milk — a Tartar remedy 
here thought very efficacious. The house was on 
the Volga bank ; an airy, pretty, wooden structure, 
with gardens about, where petunias, verbenas, mari- 
golds, and dahlias were still in flower. On the 
plain beyond, some forty mares, each with a bell 
around her neck, were feeding quietly. The " sea- 
son " is from May to September ; the charges eight 
rubles a week for board and twenty kopecks a 
bottle for milk, from three to eight bottles of which 
are taken daily. The number of patients was from 
sixty to one hundred, many of them belonging tc 
the Russian nobility and a few from western Eu- 
rope. The director was an Armenian, and the 



THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 139 

domestics all Tartars — black-eyed, rosy-cheeked 
women, with bright handkerchiefs knotted over 
their braided hair. We went into the room where 
they were churning the sweet milk to sour it, and 
then putting it into tight bottles for use — an apart- 
ment as daintily clean as Mrs. Poyser's dairy at the 
Hall Farm. While we stood there, several deli- 
cate looking young men came in, and presenting 
their checks, drank off the milk, foaming like cham- 
pagne, as if it were the most delicious of beverages. 
The house was tasteful, the gardens well kept, 
and yet it seemed to me a melancholy place for an 
invalid ; to the west the great gray river — to the 
east the monotonous steppe — and, over all, the 
hazy autumn sky. 

We returned to the town by a different route, 
and met on the wide, sandy road many ox-teams, 
some of them driven by women clad in sheep-skins, 
carrying stout whips in their hands and calling in a 
rough voice to their oxen, so that it was difficult, 
until we were close upon them, to distinguish them 
from men. There were farms on either hand, and 
one of the low-roofed houses was surrounded by an 
apple orchard. The sight was so novel that we 
drove out of our way to see it. As we approached. 



140 THE VOLGA, TO SAMARA. 

a huge dog bounded over the wall and came to- 
wards us with a ferocious bark. We were turning 
away when the master approached, and sending the 
wolfish creature back to his kennel, picked up a 
handful of apples from the ground and courteously^ 
presented them to us. They were small and sour, 
but they reminded us of laden orchards across the 
sea, and their taste was grateful after the dust of 
the highway. 

To regain the road we crossed a bare common, 
and there came upon a group of a stranger race 
than any we had that day encountered. 



A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 



A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 



Nay 1 tell us not of curtained walls I 

To us they were a prison. 
Better than all your stately halls, 
Is the heath where the blessed sunlight falls, 
And the free wind blows, and the plover calls 

When the mellow moon has risen. 
And the sod, for us, is a nobler bed 
Than the couch with richest damask spread, 
For ours are the stars and the mystic ties, 
That link the earth to the rolling skies. 

Do you see that girl with the glance of fire ? 
Woe to the man that dares her ire 1 
She knows what planet has power to harm; 
AVhat beam of the moon will faU as balm ; 
And the hour when the stormy Pleiads rise, 
And the Star of Love gives bliss for sighs ; 
And over your palm, with secret lore. 
She'll read what the dark years have m store. 



344 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT, 

Keep your wealth and your gilded bowers! 
The glory of field and sky is ours ; 
And all the spirits of earth and air, 
Follow our bidding, foul or fair 1 

rriHERE are few pleasanter moments in life 
than those in which, for the first time, we 
Bee some object, or hear some somid, long de- 
eired, but previously known only through the 
imagination. 

Journeying, some months before, from Damas- 
cus to Baalbec, we encamped for the night near 
a little village in the valley of the Barada. The 
furious wind, which had been blowing through the 
day, still continued, and almost drowned the voice 
of the river, swollen with the melting snows of 
Mount Hermon, and hastening down to the rills 
and fountains of the Damascus plain. At length 
there w^as a momentary lull in the air, and I 
lifted the curtain -door of the tent and looked 
out upon the Syrian night. The sky was deeply 
blue, and the stars shone with the brilliancy of 
a northern latitude. Not a sound was to be heard 
fron: the village or the camp. Suddenly there 
hirst from the river-thicket a song so clear, so 
rich, so rapturous, that it seemed as if a passing 
eeraph, flying too near the earth, had warbled some 



A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 145 

strain of paradise above the spot ! 1 knew it was 
the nightingale, and stood breathless, enchanted, 
when down came the wild wind from Lebanon, and 
wafted the celestial melody away. 

Not less thriUing was the moment, when a few 
weeks later, in the Prado of Madrid, I first saw a 
veritable Gypsy. We were taking an early walk, 
my friends and I; the fashionable world was not 
yet astir, and the street was almost empty, when a 
young woman approached us, and in liquid Spanish 
asked for alms. She was of medium height, and 
of compact, lithe, and exquisitely rounded form ; 
her skin was of a ruddy brown rather than the 
pallid olive of the Spaniard ; her head and face 
small ; her features regular and delicate ; her black 
eyes brilliant and unflinching; her teeth tiny and 
dazzlingly white ; her hair black and heavy, and 
coiled low on her shapely neck. Clad in a petti- 
coat that scarcely reached her bare, slender ankles, 
with a gaudy shawl over her shoulders, the folds 
drawn together by her left hand, w^hile her right 
was extended in entreaty, she was the prettiest, 
wiliest, boldest creature the sun shone upon, and 
ihe moment I saw her I exclaimed involuntarily, 
» The Gitano I " 

A-fterwards, in various countries, we met many 
to 



146 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 

of the tribe, — in England, tented on the downs at 
the Epsom races, here a little tamed, but having 
still the unmistakable characteristics of their peo- 
ple ; in Hungary and Turkey, sometimes labor- 
ing in the fields, but oftener wanderers, as be- 
comes their blood ; in Greece, roaming over the 
plain about Eleusis, fierce-eyed, squalid, men and 
women w^hom you would not like to meet when 
the sun was down ; in Moscow and Nijni, prized 
for their musical gifts, singing and dancing at the 
caf^s and the restaurants attached to the public 
gardens ; indeed, in the former city, a Galitzin did 
not disdain to make one of them his w-ife (or 
rather a Gypsy did not disdain to wed a Galitzin, 
though it is said that for months, amid the lux- 
uries of his palace, she w^ept and pined for the 
liberty and companionship of her kindred); and 
here, east of the Volga, and almost on the con- 
fines of Asia, we found them again. 

Part of the mystery which has shrouded the 
Gypsies since their first appearance in Europe, 
early in the fifteenth century, has been dissolved. 
Professor Pott of Halle has shown that their 
language is nearly allied to the old Sanskrit, and, 
by the foreign words and idioms it has gained, 



A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 147 

he traces something of the route they must have 
taken to the West. But when or why they left 
their home in India, and what are the instincts 
and influences of race and religion, which have 
made and kept them as they are, will perhaps 
never be fully known. It is computed that in all 
the world they number five millions, and they are 
most numerous in southern Europe. Abhorring 
confinement and steady labor as they do, and 
loving the open sky, it seems strange that they 
should rove these steppes where life cannot be 
supported without exertion, and where cutting 
winds and drifting snows make winter a terror 
to those exposed to their fury. But here was a 
company of more than fifty resting on the plain, 
with no visible means of subsistence, yet careless 
and content as if they had all been kings and 
peens. 

The scene, in its essential features, was such as 
Scott might have pictured for the band of Meg 
Merrilies. A group of eight or ten square white 
ients supported on poles ; rude carts standing by 
with poor old horses fettered and feeding beside 
them, while over a fire on the ground hung iron 
Dots suspended from a bar upheld by forked sticks 



148 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 

driven into the sod. The men were probably ab- 
sent on some pilfering expedition or plying their 
small trades in the town, for we saw only two, who, 
ill or lazier than the rest, were stretched on a pile 
of rags at the entrance to one of the tents. As 
we came opposite them, dogs started up from the 
earth, growling savagely, and women and children 
swarmed forth and surrounded our droskies. They 
were of all ages, from the withered crone whose 
tanned and wrinkled skin drawn tightly over her 
bones made her look like a veritable mummy, and 
set you wondering why the winds of the steppe had 
not long before blown her away, to the velvet- 
cheeked, six-months-old baby that laughed and 
crowed, and held up its fat, brown hands beneath 
the shelter of its mother's shawl. Fine-limbed and 
erect, with lustrous hair and piercing eyes, many 
of them would have been exceedingly handsome 
but for the hardness and roughness of their lives. 
Their dress was like that of the poorest Rusdan 
peasants, — a wrap of coarse cloth or sheep-skin, — 
but there was a picturesqueness all their own in the 
handkerchief tied round the head like a turban, and 
the shawl draping the well-formed shoulders. All 
wore earrings and trinkets of some sort, princi 




''"■■^^. 



GYPSY FORTUNE TELLER. 



A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 149 

pallj colored glass beads, mixed with coral ; and 
one had, attached to her showy necklace, a medal 
with an image in relief of Christ on the cross, 
— doubtless a mere unknown amulet to her on 
whose neck it hung. 

An old woman separated herself from the crowd 
and through our interpreter asked in Russ to tell 
oar fortunes. Looking into her listener's palm and 
compelling attention by the magnetic fire of her 
eyes, she poured forth statements and prophecies 
shrewdly adapted to the apparent age and circum- 
stances of each individual she addressed, and which 
could hardly be explained except on the supposition 
that she possessed something of that strange clair- 
voyant power which makes the thoughts of another 
as our own. Then they proposed to sing, and form- 
ing a circle they broke into a wild, mournful, mo- 
notonous strain, while a poor blind girl, whom we 
had not hitherto seen, came from the nearest tent, 
and making her way to the middle of the ring, 
began to dance to the music. It was like the dance 
we had seen among the Gypsies of the cafds at 
Moscow and Nijni, only slower and more mysteri- 
ous in its motion. For a moment she stood as 
though under a spell ; then swayed herself gently 



150 A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 

to and fro ; then extended her arms as if in suppli- 
cation ; then, poising herself, whirled to the singing 
like one in an ecstasy of inspiration ; and then, ex- 
hausted, with drooping head and folded hands, she 
sank back and was lost in the circle at her side. 
Instantly another sprang forward, went through 
the same postures and silent invocations and re- 
turned to her place ; then another, and another, 
until nearly all the young women had borne a part, 
and from weariness both singers and dancers were 
still. As I watched them, I did not wonder that 
they have always been accused of magic, and of a 
league with " the Prince of the Powers of the 
air." It was not a voluptuous measure, but a 
weird incantation ; and I could but regard it as 
derived from some ancient religion, some early 
worship or superstition of their race. 

As the circle broke up, two young girls came 
across the heath, the exact counterparts of the 
Gypsy of the Prado. Their cheeks were aglow 
with exercise ; their long hair, escaped from con- 
finement, fell in rich masses over their shoulders . 
and they advanced, chatting gayly to themselves, 
and eating sunflower seeds which they had gath- 
ered from the stalks yet standing in the fields. I* 



A GYPSY ENCAMPMENT. 151 

was a picture of simplicity and beauty and health 
and freedom that carried one back to the youth of 
the world. 

With our farewells we gave them money, which 
seemed highly to delight them, but just as we drove 
away, they called after us in an unintelligible 
dialect, whether with blessings or curses we could 
not divine. I fancy, however, it was the latter, 
for at once their dogs set up an angry howl, which 
did not cease until we were out of sight of tent and 
common. 



THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 



THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 



Hail to the glorious morning 

When the Cross again shall shine 
On the summit of Saint Sophia, 

O city of Constantinel 
And that day of sack and slaughter 

When the wild, despairing cries 
Of " Kyrie Eleison I " fainter 

Went wailing up to the skies, 
Shall be lost in the splendid triumph 

As the Church reclaims her own, 
And the Patriarch welcomes our Lord, the Czar, 

To the Caesars* ancient throne ! 

In the sky of the south, at midnight, 

We have seen God's flaming sign, 
And we know He will drive the Moslem hordo, 

In wrath, from his sacred shrine I 
Silent will be the muezzin 

As the sun on Asia sets; 
Folded the Crescent banner ; 

Crumbled the minarets. 



156 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST, 

Then, under that dome of glory, 

Victorious chants we'll raise. 
While the saints look down with loving eyes, 

And the gems of the altar blaze. 
Hail to the day when the Eagles 

And the Cross shall gain their own. 
As the Patriarch welcomes our Lord, the Czar, 

To the Caesars' ancient throne I 

rpHE next day was Sunday, and we were wak- 
ened by the chimes of the church-towers, bold 
and clear as the clanging music of the Kremlin. 
For at every point where Russia rests on her road 
to the East, by fort and barrack she rears the 
shrines of her religion, and drowns the muezzin's 
cry with the louder call of her bells, " To prayer ! 
To prayer! There is no God but God, and the 
Orthodox Church is his Prophet ! " 

At the same time she is too broad and politic in 
her views not to humor the tastes and prejudices 
of the conquered. Five years ago, when the cor- 
ner-stone of a Greek church was laid at the newly- 
acquired city of Tashkend, the ceremonies were fol- 
lowed by a festival with games and races in which 
the inhabitants delight, and concluded by a ban- 
quet for the multitude. 



THE EMPIRE OF TEE EAST. 157 

With true Asiatic diplomacy, Russia gives when 
she would gain ; she yields when she seeks submis- 
sion ; and thus, through tlie unavoidable press of 
trade, and the necessity for peace on her frontiers 
and for better communication with distant points; 
and perhaps still more through her ambition which 
takes advantage of every favorable opportunity, she 
has pushed her way till from this former outpost on 
the Volga she has gone almost to Kuldja and Kash- 
gar; nay, till at one point but a hundred miles in- 
tervene between her rule and that of the Rajah of 
Cashmere ; while to the east she has seized upon 
the Amoor, the great river outlet of central Asia, 
which for more than two thousand miles rolls 
through a region rich in forests and pastures, in 
meadows and mines, down to its mouth, where, 
guarded now by the guns of the fortress of Nik- 
olaefsk, it pours its majestic tide into the Pacific, at 
the Okhotsk Sea. 

Wherever Russia gains a foothold she raises a 
fort and lays down a military road, along which, if 
it be needful, she digs wells ; and her daring pio- 
neers, the Cossacks, are both builders and guards- 
men. Next she establishes a fair at which the na- 
tives can buy or barter after their own fashion, and 



158 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 

speedily the surrounding country is under her con- 
trol. The Fair of Nijni was opened on what was 
then the frontier of Asia. The Fair of Irbit is the 
centre of trade for western Siberia; and through 
the steppes and all along the Amoor and its afflu- 
ents, it is at the yermaks (fairs) that the Rus- 
sian merchants and Cossacks barter their bright 
cloths and beads and ribbons for the horses and 
cattle of the Kirghizes ; and exchange their flour 
and powder and lead and whiskey for the fox and 
squirrel and sable skins of the Toungouz and Goldi 
and Gelyak hunters. 

Since that bright Sunday morning, when the 
bells of Samara brought her victories to mind, she 
has added " silken Samarcand," the capital of Ti- 
mour, to her possessions ; and so far overcome the 
" noble Bokhara '* that its emir, hereditary " Keep- 
er of the Faith " of Islam, has allowed her to con- 
struct three fortresses on the border which virtually 
command his territory ; has given liberty and pro- 
tection to Russian trade ; and has even sent his son 
to St. Petersburg to beg the Emperor's assistance 
in securing him succession to the throne — thus de- 
claring himself her vassal. At Tashkend she has 
established the " Bank of Central Asia," with a 



THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 159 

branch at Orenburg, and founded a library where 
are already gathered many manuscripts important 
to the history of the region ; while a journal, the 
" Tashkend Messenger," records duly the news of 
the West and the state of trade along the fron- 
tier. 

Independent Turkestan will soon cease to exist. 
Its cities of mysterious and poetic renown will 
be but garrisons for Russian governors ; and the 
fertile fields of the Oxus and the Jaxartes with 
their silk, their cotton, their grain, their fruit, and 
the boundless steppes that stretch away on either 
hand, yielding herds and flocks innumerable, will 
be but tributary to Russian commerce and Russian 
pride. 

Perhaps this is but the natural and necessary 
result of her position. Certainly it is a beneficent 
change which brings law and order and the germs 
of a purer religion and a better civilization into this 
realm of ignorance and reckless rule ; and for the 
progress of the world we may desire the swift 
coming of the day when the Czar shall be acknowl- 
edged as the Great White Khan by all the tribes 
from the Volga to the mountains of Thibet and 
the Chinese Wall. But when I read of a scene 



160 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST, 

like that which the traveller Atkinson describe-s, 
where coming towards nightfall to a valley of the 
Alatau range he was warmly welcomed by a 
Kirghiz chief who sat at the door of his yourt, in 
the midst of that superb landscape, with his flocks 
and herds feedino; all about him on the mountain 
slopes ; or of the migration of the tribes and their 
herds to the high summer pastures ; or of the 
group he encountered at an encampment on the 
plain, whose patriarch rose to receive him and 
made room for him on his own carpet where, en- 
circled by his family and followers, he listened to a 
bard singing before him the brave deeds of his 
ancestors, — I wish these Turkish, Tartar tribes 
could be developed and elevated in ways congenial 
to their own instincts and peculiarities, and not 
forced to accept our modes of life and thought. 
In mind and manners and costume the world tends 
towards a uniformity which is fatal to individuality 
and picturesqueness. Let the plundering foray 
and the deadly feud be done away ; but perpetuate 
the daring, the simplicity, the hospitality, the manly 
exercises and the easy robes of these shepherds ot 
the steppes — inherited, it may be, from the first 
rover who left his fellows to pitch his tent on the 
open plain ! 



THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 161 

Yet it is with her gaze fixed always on the South 
that Russia advances in the East ; and while her 
word is becoming law for the vast central region 
beyond the Volga, while she covers the Caspian 
and the Euxine with her fleets, and from the 
mountains of the Caucasus and ancient Ararat 
threatens Asia Minor, she can bide her time for the 
possession of the Fair City by the Golden Horn. 

" How soon," I asked of a Russian on the Black 
Sea, — " how soon do you think to gain Constanti- 
nople?" 

" Ah," he replied, " I cannot tell. It may be 
ten years ; it may be a hundred ; but Constanti- 
nople is oursy 

" That will be a proud day when you uncover 
the frescoes of Justinian on the walls of St. Sophia, 
and rear the cross above its sacred dome." 

" Yes, a proud day for Russia and for the Church. 
God grant I may live to see it ! " 

And when the dav comes ; — when it is Russia 
from the White Sea to the Sea of Marmora, and 
from the Carpathians to the Pacific ; when the 
long dream of the Muscovites has become a reality 
and the Czar's summer palace is by the Bosphorus 
instead of the Bay of Yalta ; when the city of 
11 



162 THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 

Constantine is again the head of the Eastern 
Church, and the glory has come back to St. Sophia 
— the music, the incense, the splendid ceremonial 
that dazzled and won the first Russian envoys ; 
and when, with the dignity of the ages and more 
than the authority of any Romish Vatican, she 
gives the law to all of her creed — what Power will 
be the peer of the Empire of the East ? 

There will be but one. The Power that, like 
her, calls a continent its own — under whose 
banner all races dwell securely and every man of 
them a Czar — whose religion is more Orthodox 
than the Faith of the Greeks ; for, through ordina- 
tion older than that of bishop or patriarch, each 
soul is free to find God in its own way — the Power 
grand as the Empire — the Republic of the West I 



THE VOLGA TO KAMYSCHIN. 



THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCfflN. 



And still we kept the Volga's tide, 

The Volga rolling gray and wide ; 

While the gulls of the Caspian over it flew, 

A flash of silver and jet in the sun, 
And, chill though the blast from the Oural blew, 

Circled and hovered till day was done. 

Faint, in the lulls of the wind, from shore 

Came the lowing of herds that roved the plain ; 
And the bells rang over the water's roar 

Calling the hamlet to holy fane. 
And slowly the fishers of Astrakhan 

Stemmed the current with laden keel; 
While the barges the Kama peasants man, 
And the barks of the Oka past them ran, 

Heaped with iron and wheat and steel ; 
And as far as the wind could wander free, 

On either side was the grassy sea. 

npHROUGH the broad streets we walked leis- 
urely down to take the afternoon boat which 
was to leave the wharf at three o'clock. Few 



166 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 

women were to be seen, but groups of men stood 
on the corners or strolled about, many of them 
rough, wild-looking people with sandals of basket- 
work and strips of coarse cloth wrapped around 
their legs. From a cellar a man emerged and 
strode past us who startled me by his resemblance 
to a North American Indian ; the same brown skin 
and high cheek bones and straight black hair, with 
a blanket flung over his shoulders like a true Ute 
or Pawnee. He was a Kalmuck from the steppe, 
and, whatever ethnologists may say, his race always 
vividly recalled the Red man. 

On the river again, flowing west now, instead of 
east, and bearing us with every wave farther from 
Samara and Orenburg and the strange regions to 
which they are the gates. Taking a last look at 
the town stretching along the shore and over the 
plain, with its great pine warehouses for the re- 
ception of grain, its many small dwelhngs and its 
lofty churches and barracks, we thought it was not 
unlike a crude city of the prairies. 

The sky was obscured ; the air cold ; the shores 
low and objectless. A moonless night followed the 
leaden day, and the boat anchored for several hours 
at a small station where wood was taken on — the 



THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 167 

heavy sticks falling with such a crash into the hold 
that sleep was impossible. It is no wonder the 
Russian forests have grown thin and in some re- 
gions disappeared. The cold makes fires a neces- 
sity for the greater part of the year, and only wood 
is used for fuel, while in many provinces dry laths 
are burned for lights. Nearly all the houses are 
made of wood ; those of the poorer classes of 
hewn logs. All furniture and household utensils 
are of wood, and a vast number of young lindens 
have been annually cut for the manufacture of 
shoes. Three shoots of three years' growth are 
required for a single pair, and a workingman will 
wear out fifty such pairs in a year. Timber is one 
of the principal articles of inland traffic ; the forests 
of the north and of the Oural supplying the 
steppes, as with us those of the great lakes do the 
prairies. But of late the wood lands have received 
much attention, and now stringent laws regulate 
the felling of trees. Logs are sawed into planks 
instead of being wasted by hewing. Leather boots 
are gradually supplanting bark shoes. Tallow can- 
dles are taking the place of torches of birch and 
pine. Li many districts live hedges supersede 
board fences, and wide tracts are planted with 



168 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN, 

larches. Now, too, large coal deposits have been 
found in the basin of the Don, along the Caspian, 
and on the Kama, near Perm. 

As usual we were on our way with the dawn. 
The shores were flat and sandy, and flocks of dark- 
winged gulls flew over the river. At ten o'clock 
we came to Volsk, a town of thirty thousand inhab- 
itants, on the right bank, and the centre of a region 
of orchards and gardens where the fruits and veg- 
etables suited to the climate are grown and dis- 
posed of chiefly at Nijni Novgorod. Here most of 
the second and third class passengers went ashore 
to buy black bread and water-melons or cucumbers 
which were lying in heaps on the bank waiting for 
purchasers. 

Cabbages, cucumbers, and onions are the most 
common vegetables of Russia, and, either fresh or 
salted, they form, with the lower classes at least, a 
part of almost every meal. In all the southern 
provinces melons of large size and excellent flavor 
are raised in great numbers and sent from thence 
up the rivers to the north. What a fine pear or 
peach is to an American, that a slice of water- 
melon is to a Russian. Cherries, and apples of 
varieties brought originally from Astrakhan and 



THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 169 

Persia, are common as far north as Vladimir ; but, 
perhaps because it was too early in the season, we 
saw few that were not small and poor« All the 
fruits of the temperate zone are grown farther 
south; and in greenhouses, even north of St. Pe- 
tersburg, they are brought to perfection. Many 
small fruits grow wild, and are eaten fresh, and 
made into sweetmeats and cordials. The marshes 
of the north are red with cranberries, which supply 
the place of lemons to the inhabitants ; strawber- 
ries and blueberries abound, and raspberries, loved 
of bears and children, ripen everywhere. The 
director of a band of laborers in a rural district 
north of Moscow told me that in the raspberry 
season the men in his employ were desirous to 
obtain some of the fruit, w^hich was not plenty 
there. They had noticed that one of the women 
of the village came home every morning about 
nine o'clock with her basket full of fine berries. 
Strangers in the place, they asked her where she 
found them. She refused to tell, and they deter- 
mined the next morning to watch and follow her. 
Suspecting their intention, she was up and oif with 
the dawn ; but just as they had risen she cama 
flying back to the village half wild with terror, her 



170 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 

basket gone, her dress torn, and her hair streaming 
over her shoulders. As soon as she could speak 
she said that she had walked to the raspberry patch 
as usual and was quietly filling her basket when 
just before her she saw an enormous bear standing 
on his hind legs, and with his fore paws drawing 
the bushes to his mouth and leisurely devouring 
the fruit. Leaping to the path, and imagining the 
bear in close pursuit, she ran at the top of her 
speed across the fields and never stopped till she 
had reached her own door. Her secret garden was 
discovered, but the villagers sought in vain through 
the summer months for the bear. Perhaps he was 
reserved for a grander end when in mid-winter the 
vapor of his breath disclosing to the keen-eyed 
peasants his den beneath the snow, the Czar him- 
self, in a royal hunt, gave him his death wound. 
Hazel-nuts are common, and, in the Oural, the 
spicy nuts of the cedar. Thus, though compara- 
tively little attention is paid to horticulture, the 
Russians, even of the north, are not so destitute 
of fruits and vegetables as would at first appear. 

Wood was brought on board here by two women 
fastened together with straps over their shoulders, 
to which poles, some four feet in length, were at- 



THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 171 

tached, and across these the sticks were laid. 
Stout and hardy as men, bare-headed, with short, 
coarse petticoats and loose jackets, they went to 
and fro till the last load was transferred to the 
hold, steady and stolid and untiring as well-trained 
mules or oxen. 

Below Volsk the river widens, flowing with a 
slow, majestic current. As we dropped down its 
tide great steamers and rafts from Astrakhan and 
the Caspian passed us on their way to the north, 
many of them laden with the products of the fish- 
eries. For of all the rivers and seas of the world 
none are more abundantly stocked with fish than 
the Volga and the Caspian ; indeed, at some sea- 
sons, the stream below Astrakhan, and the sea, 
near its mouth, are literally crowded with the finny 
tribes. The most important of these are the va- 
rious species of sturgeon, from the small sterlet, so 
much in repute for its delicate flavor, to the great 
belugas which weigh from one to three thou- 
sand pounds. All the affluents of the Volga are 
filled with fish, but those of the cold waters of the 
Kama are considered best, and there can be nc 
greater table luxury to a Russian than caviare 
made from the roes of the sterlet of this river. 
The Tartar name for the Volga is Edel — Plenty. 



172 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 

Everything relating to the fisheries is regulated 
by law. They employ many thousands of men 
and boats through a large part of the year, and 
furnish vast quantities, not only of fresh and cured 
fish, but also of caviare, isinglass, and oil, for home 
use and for exportation. Astrakhan is the store- 
house of the fisheries, and from thence their wealth 
is distributed over the empire. For some time 
after the conquest of this Khanate, the fisheries, 
which had been diligently maintained by the Tar- 
tars, were the property of the Church. Then they 
reverted to the Crown, and later, upon the payment 
of an annual tribute, they passed into the hands of 
private companies, but for more than fifty years 
they have been free to all. 

At five o'clock we reached SaratofF, the most 
populous city on the Volga, with bazaars, annual 
fairs, and great trade in fish, grain, salt, cattle, 
leather and skins. Yet, large as it is, it lacks the 
dignity and beauty of Kazan. Its streets, broad 
and well-built as they are towards the river, end in 
forlorn, sandy roads bordered with poor cabins that 
straggle up the bare, barren slope beyond the town. 
The Volga here is a superb stream, three miles 
wide at low water, and fifteen miles during the 



THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 173 

floods of spring, when it inundates the low lands to 
the east. 

We took droskies, in form like an Irish jaunt- 
ing-car, and drove up the steep hill through the 
principal streets. The bells for some church ser- 
vice were ringing blithe and clear beneath the star- 
spangled domes of the belfries ; but the busy day 
was not yet over, and only a few women seemed 
to be responding to the summons. Aside from 
their natural religious bias, I do not wonder at 
the devotion of the Russians to their Church ; for 
these lofty towers, with glittering crosses and 
pealing bells, are often all that the landscape has 
of beauty and cheer. 

Saratoff is famous for its manufactures of silk 
and leather, and of gold and silver ware. At a 
jeweler's we found many articles novel in design 
and exquisite in finish — bells of silver-gilt in the 
shape of a pear, supported on a branch with 
leaves ; salvers and pitchers rich with clustering 
flowers in dark enamel, and various personal orna- 
ments of the beautiful crystals of the Oural. 
Here, too, were well-executed bronze statuettes 
of Lincoln exposed in the window — the grave, 
Kindly face having the same charm on the Volga 
Rs by the Sangamon. 



174 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 

Standing in the handsome square, with gay 
spires and roofs rising about us, and carriages 
dashing past, we might quite have admired bust- 
ling, ambitious Saratoff, if we could have shut 
from view the dreary sand-hills and mean huts 
beyond. 

The boat lay all night at her moorings, and 
having become accustomed to the saloon divan for 
a couch, we slept quietly beside the noisy bank. 
The next day was wonderfully clear, with a 
strong, cold wind blowing from sunrise to sunset, 
and covering with white waves the broad, gray 
river. The shores were low, scarcely above the 
water's edge, or else mere sandy bluffs stretching 
off to the plain. All day the most noticeable ob- 
jects were the great herds of cattle, sometimes 
feeding near the brink, sometimes just visible on 
the horizon. Yet this monotonous region has been 
the scene of more migrations, tumults, battles, and 
piracies than almost any other on earth. For we 
were now parallel to that open space of nearly 
three hundred miles between the Caspian and 
the Oaral ; the gate through which the tribes of 
Asia have always poured into Europe, from the 



TEE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 175 

first adventurers timidly entering unknown lands, 
to the fierce Huns, the hordes of Genghis and 
Timour, and the later companies of Kalmucks, 
Turkomans, and Tartars roaming to and fro as 
fancy or necessity might decide. As the gusty 
wind swept over the boat, the shouts of Hun and 
Mongol and Tartar, and the shrieks and death- 
cries of their victims, seemed to live and linger 
in its wail. 

Under a splendid sunset we came to anchor 
at Kamyschin, a small place with the usual bar- 
racks, and warehouses for grain. As at Volsk, 
heaps of melons and poor apples were for sale on 
the bank, and a flight of steep stairs led to the 
streets beyond. For at the breaking up of win- 
ter the Volga becomes an inland sea, and thus, 
as on the Mississippi, the highest points are se- 
lected for the towns. As we walked about we 
heard that a theatrical company had arrived, and 
would give a performance at eight o'clock, ad- 
mittance one ruble. Glad of a little variety, 
tickets were purchased, and just before the time 
we went to the designated building. A crowd 
of shabbily dressed people stood about and looked 
on with evident envy, as the dooj:-keeper made 



176 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 

way for us and handed us two programmes of the 
entertainment, written with a pen, in Russ, and 
each covering two pages of foolscap. For all the 
good they did us, he might as well have furnished 
us with a list of the plays in the moon. I doubt 
if the alphabet of that, or any other orb, w^ould 
be so tormenting to the American eye as is the 
written Russ, with its letters so like, and yet so 
unlike our own, deluding and baffling at every line. 
It was a barn-like structure into which we en- 
tered ; its floor of earth and its seats rude benches. 
An audience of perhaps a hundred people, half of 
them army officers with their families, waited the 
opening of the entertainment. Eight o'clock came, 
but the fall of faded calico, which hid the stage 
and wavered in the wind that found entrance on 
every side, refused to rise. Voices as in angry 
altercation were heard behind it, now repressed, 
now rising with the passion of the speaker; and 
although profane swearing is almost unknown in 
Russia, if we had been familiar with the language 
we should doubtless have heard some astonishing 
epithets. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed 
tnus, while the three weary musicians laid down 
their instruments, and the candles flared and the 



THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN, 177 

curtain trembled in the draught. The seats were 
hard ; the sandy floor cold ; yet there was no 
calling, or hissing, or stamping of feet, but all, in 
patient silence, waited the pleasure of the per- 
formers. At length, their quarrels over, there 
was a stir and rustle, and the thin screen rose 
slowly, disclosing a farm-house interior, witli a 
pretty young girl in peasant costume standing by 
the table in earnest conversation with her lover, 
who was evidently agitated and fearful of being 
discovered by the family. I could not see how 
their wooing was in aught different from that of 
the lovers of the West, or their grief less heart- 
breaking than theirs, when the enraged father 
burst in and, rudely seizing his daughter, compelled 
the young man to fly. The action was natural 
and spirited, and the audience Hstened with closest 
attention. But as only now and then a word was 
intelligible to us, the cold got the better of our 
enthusiasm, and we left at the end of the first 
act, without waiting to see whether Romeo and 
Juliet went forward to a wedding or a funeral. 

The throng outside was greater than when we 
came — poor people, to whom a ruble was a little 
fortune, pushing close to the door that they might 

12 



178 THE VOLGA, TO KAMYSCHIN. 

catch some word or hint of the delight within. 
For a love of music and the drama is the birth- 
gift of the Slavonians, though, in cultured guise, 
they have been, thus far, almost out of the reach 
of any but the upper classes. But with the new 
life of the nation, art in all its manifestations will 
gradually come to be a universal inheritance, and 
only the future can show what rare forms grace 
and beauty and harmony will assume with this 
people whose development has hardly begun, and 
in whom the European and the Asiatic are so 
subtly blended. 

Over the western steppes the wind had gone 
down with the sun, and as, in the darkness, we 
descended the stairs and crossed the platform to 
the boat, there was no sound but the ripple of 
the river beneath her bows. 



KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 



KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 



Farewell, O River of the Plain, 

O River of the Sea 1 
Fain would I follow to the main 

Thy current strong and free ; 
And find, beyond thy reedy islands, 
The sullen Caspian's ocean silence. 

The Kalmuck girls with braided hair, 

And cap of scarlet crown. 
Beside their tents, in evening fair, 

Will watch thy tide go down ; 
And songs of the steppe and its rovers sing, 
Their swarthy lovers listening. 

And Kirghis, dark with desert suns. 

Will halt beside thy brink. 
While the steed, the brackish spring that shuns, 

Stoops low, thy wave to drink ; 
Then, fresh and fleet as at dawn of day, 
Over the plain they'll haste away. 

Farewell. I feel the west wind blow ; 
The Asian dream is o'er j 



182 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS, 

And Europe 's in the sunset glow, 

That gilds thy sandy shore. 
I go where other streams will shine, 
But none so lone, so grand as thine. 

\TTE had purposed keeping the Volga as far as 
^ Astrakhan, that we might see something of 
the City of the Islands, and of the seventy arms by 
which the great river discharges its waters ; but 
the season was unhealthy along the Caspian, and 
reluctantly the plan was abandoned. 

At eleven o'clock the next morning we reached 
Tzaritsin, from whence we were to find our way 
south by the railway, seventy-five versts in length, 
to Kalatch on the Don, and thence by steamer 
down that river. Too late, however, for the morn- 
ing train, we decided to go twenty miles farther on 
the Volga to Sarepta, returning in the evening. 

The country about Tzaritsin is fertile and at- 
tractive, compared with the arid, saline steppes and 
marshes of the lower river. In April, which is 
here the loveliest month of the year, the fields and 
plains are bright with crocuses and red and yellow 
tulips, and rich with succulent grasses, luxurious 
food for the herds that, unhoused, have supported 
the cold of winter. But the hot winds from the 



KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 183 

southeast soon destroy the verdure, and the earth 
is parched and bare till autumn rains bring forth a 
new generation of plants and flowers. On out 
right was the rolling plain reaching to the Don ; on 
our left the wide and barren steppe of the Oural, 
still called the Kalmuck steppe, from its occupation 
by the Mongolian horde that in the latter part of 
the last century took the long march to Chinese 
Tartary rather than submit to the rule of the Rus- 
sians. Since then their old conquerors have taken 
a long march also, and the followers of Buddha 
only postponed their fate. The thousands whom 
various circumstances compelled to remain, are 
scattered over the country between the Sea of 
Azoff and the Kirghiz frontier. 

This region was once the residence of the Tartar 
Golden Horde, and ruins are yet found, a little 
way to the east, where their capital is fabled to 
have stood. Near the river, plantations of mul- 
berry trees, now mixed with other growths of the 
forest, and of which the Russians have no record, 
survive to tell of their skillful industry. The trees 
still bring forth leaves and fruit, but where are the 
Khans clad in silk and glittering with gems, whose 
word was law over these steppes and streams ? 



184 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 

And whither have they fled, the dark-ejed beau- 
ties, with braided hair and flowing robes, who min- 
istered to their delight ? 

Wherever the shore was low and open, we had 
glimpses of a country burnt and brown as Califor 
nia at midsummer, but without the evergreen oaks 
which in that American Asia preserve always the 
memory of spring. On the steppe, to the east, 
grow wild rue, and a species of wormwood not un- 
like the sage-brush of our western plains. Heath 
hens, and small, fleet antelopes feed on it during 
the season of drought; while the reedy marshes 
along the river are filled with water-fowl that sub- 
sist upon the small grains and seeds of their various 
plants and grasses. 

Of the many German colonies along the Volga, 
Sarepta is perhaps the most important. It was 
founded a hundred years ago as a Moravian mis- 
sionary station among the Kalmucks, and was then 
the only settlement between Tzaritsin and Astra- 
khan. To guard it from the incursions of wander- 
ing tribes it was fortified, and had the protection of 
a small resident garrison. Rare privileges were 
granted it by the Imperial government ; for then, 
as now, wherever Germans were found, there was 



KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 185 

the nucleus of a better civilization. Priestly efforts 
to bring the Kalmucks into the Orthodox com- 
munion interfered with the religious plans of the 
colony, but in material things it is both prosperous 
and influential. 

We landed at a wooden pier, near which was a 
small station-house that overhung the water, and 
in an open wagon rode over the two or three versts 
that lay between the river and the town. The soil 
was sandy, and part of the way a growth of low 
oaks and pines lined the road. The village, with its 
yellow houses built about a square, looks thoroughly 
German, and a little like a settlement of Shakers. 
Its five hundred inhabitants are a most industrious, 
thrifty community. From their cattle, their fish- 
eries, their flax and tobacco, their manufactures of 
cotton and linen fabrics, of soap and of brandy, 
they derive an excellent income ; and among the 
idle, ignorant population about them they are a 
perpetual proof of the advantages of intelligent 
labor. They employ their Kalmuck neighbors in 
the fields and as herdsmen whenever they can ob- 
tain them, but it is only at intervals that this peo- 
ple, whose wants are so few, will forsake the lazy 
:juiet which is to them the first of luxuries. 



186 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 

Wishing to have a sight of these Russian Mon- 
gols, relics of the half million that followed their 
Khan back to the pastures of Central Asia, we 
took a Moravian guide and drove straight through 
the town to the steppe beyond — the great rolling 
plain that loses itself in the salt waves of the Cas- 
pian. At the distance of a verst we came to some 
of their tents or yourts ; round frames of wood 
covered with skins, with a curtain of skin hanging 
before the opening — just such habitations as shel- 
ter their kindred in Mongolia and Tartary, and 
which for ages have not changed their shape or 
size. We entered several and were pleasantly re- 
ceived by the inmates. The space within was 
like that of an ordinary room, and the only furni- 
ture a wooden chest or two, and sheep-skins and 
blankets serving as carpets by day and beds by 
night. On the ground, in the middle of the tent, 
was a fire of roots and dry dung, burning without 
blaze but with a steady glow, and about it the in- 
mates reclined or sat cross-legged, the elder women 
at work upon some of their coarse garments, and 
the half-grown children and the few men present 
lolling about in absolute idleness. They were very 
dark but had a rich color with straight, jet-black 



KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 187 

hair, and in spite of the flat nose and high cheek 
bones some of them were really handsome. If 
the Huns were Kalmucks, and Herodotus pictures 
them truly, the race, judging from those of Sarepta, 
has vastly improved since his day. As we entered 
one tent a young girl retreated timidly to the far- 
ther side and stood, regarding us, in an attitude 
which was grace itself. Her features were less 
marked than those of her companions, and in every 
glance and movement there was a soft languor as 
charming as it was un-European. She doubtless 
wore, like all the rest, a long garment tied loosely 
about the waist ; but I only remember her easy 
pose and the high cap of scarlet and yellow beneath 
which her dark hair descended to her shoulders. 
Such a Mongol maiden must have been the bride 
of the earth-spirit — the fabled virgin mother of 
the great Genghis ; and in this Kalmuck girl of the 
Volga I fancied I saw again the flowering of her 
race. 

All the men and women wore earrings, — some 
of them a large ring in one ear only, — and on their 
heads a lamb-skin turban, those of the women 
having a centre of bright cloth. The very young 
children rolled about, nearly naked, upon the skins 



188 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 

before the fire, while the elder amused themselves 
outside and seemed much pleased with the gift of a 
few kopecks and confections. 

These Mongolians are probably on the way to 
civilization, but, undeveloped as they are, in the 
tameness and security of their present life they are 
far less interesting than their Asiatic kindred, to 
whom daring bravery and skill in horsemanship, in 
the chase, and in arts of defense and aggression, are 
necessities of existence. Any one is a prince 
among them who possesses flocks of sheep ; and 
their severest malediction is, " May you live in one 
place and work like a Russian ! " 

As we walked away we saw sheep-skins stretched 
over poles, and rows of flat cakes of dung set up 
to dry in the sun, but neither grain, nor shrub, nor 
flower planted by the hand of man. A few horses 
fed on the brown grass at the edge of the pine 
woods, and in front was the interminable plain. 

It was a pleasant change from the Mongol tents 
to the quaint, neat parlor of the Moravian hotel, 
with its plain, ancient furniture and blue-painted 
walls. Here we had lunch — toast and tea, with 
new-laid eggs and bacon — served by a comely 



KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 189 

maiden in a checked cotton dress, with her fair 
hair braided and coiled in true German fashion. 
Everything about the house bespoke order, thrift, 
and extreme simplicity. Good water was brought in 
pipes from a spring a mile distant, and about every 
house were vegetable gardens. Kindly, industri- 
ous people are these Moravians ; and if they are 
not now the earnest propagators of their faith they 
were a hundred years since, as agriculturists and 
peaceful, moral citizens they are still missionaries. 

At six o'clock we went back to the river to meet 
the boat for Tzaritsin. In the small cabin by the 
pier lived a Russian and his wife whose charge it 
was to attend to the passengers and freight of the 
landing. The woman, stout and florid, was a very 
rainbow in attire. She had a green skirt with a 
red waist ; a bright plaid apron ; blue and yellow 
beads and earrings, and a pink cap with purple 
strings ; and from their midst her round, smiling 
face beamed like the full moon. 

We sat by the window looking down the broad 
river towards Astrakhan and watching for the 
steamer. On the platform without were two or 
three peasants catching silver fish — tiny creatures, 
like sardines for size, that glittered in the sun aa 



190 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 

they were drawn up the high bank and thrown 
Into the waiting basket. There was no sound but 
the dash of the river against the shore. A few 
laden rafts went by, and steamers upward bound 
that did not deign to call at Sarepta. The sun 
sank in a blaze of gold with a flush of the same hue 
over all the horizon, prolonged till twilight and the 
coming of the stars. The air grew chill, and the 
good-natured woman brought her shining samovar 
and made us tea. At eight o'clock vre learned 
definitely that through some delay there would be 
no boat till morning, and in a peasant's wagon we 
returned to the village. 

It was eighteen versts — twelve miles — across 
the country to Tzaritsin, and we resolved to ride 
over. A carriage was soon made ready ; a roomy 
afiair with four horses abreast and a Moravian 
driver. There was no moon, but the night was 
clear and cold, with innumerable stars, and rapidly 
we sped along the wide, dusty road, over the roll- 
ing plain ; dismounting twice, at tributaries of the 
Volga, to walk across the bridges which were 
deemed unsafe for a heavy carriage. I never re- 
member having such a sense of remoteness and 
isolation from my accustomed world as during 



KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 191 

that evening ride. One or two hamlets were 
passed with lights twinkling through their win- 
dows, and, at a turn of the road, some loaded 
teams plodding their way;, to the south ; but most 
of the distance the earth lay as void beneath the 
sky, and the wind blew over it as mournfully, as if 
it had never known the presence of man. 

At midnight, descending the slope towards the 
river, we reached Tzaritsin. Felicitating ourselves 
upon rest and quiet after the fatigues of the day, 
we hastened through the empty streets only to 
learn that the single hotel had been burned a short 
time previous, and that the only place where we 
could spend the night was the railway station. At 
the station then we alighted ; said good-night to 
the skillful driver ; returned with thanks the warm 
wrappings which the kind villagers had furnished 
us ; and entered the door to find what cheer we 
could in the upright wooden chairs and bare 
benches of the great saloon. 

Even now it gives me a feeling of weariness to 
think of the utter discomfort of that night. There 
was a ladies* room, but it was crowded with moth- 
ers, nurses, and crying children; and the large 
apartment where men were coming and going, 



192 KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 

public though it was, was far more inviting. Here 
then, upon bench or chair, we disposed ourselves, 
with officers, Cossacks, peasants, and Tartars for 
companions ; some snoring, some pouring forth a 
tide of Russ in narration and argument. Now 
and then there would come a lull w^hen even the 
sleepers drew their breath quietly ; but just as I 
was lapsing into grateful oblivion a child would 
scream, or the great door opening on to the street 
slam with unusual violence ; and when at last I sank 
into momentary slumber it was to dream that I was 
in a Kalmuck tent arrayed in the tunic and high 
cap of the women — that the tribe was about to mi- 
grate to the plains of Tartary — and that through 
searching for my lost silver necklace I was in dan- 
ger of being left to the vengeance of the Russians. 

So the long hours wore away until daylight 
looked in through the unshaded windows and the 
whole caravanserai was awake and astir. O the 
easy toilets of those shaggy fellows ! A settling 
into the enormous boots ; a shake of the head, tlie 
fingers running through the matted hair ; a tight- 
ening of the girdle about the loose caftan , and they 
were ready for the day. One by one the mothers 
and nurses appeared with the children, most of 



KALMUCKS AND MORAVIANS. 193 

them now in good-humor. The waiters set the 
steaming samovars upon the deal tables, and soon 
all were busy making and drinking tea, sipping it 
from glass tumblers and holding the sugar in the 
hand as is the universal custom. This, with bread 
cut from the loaf — often with a knife carried in 
the belt — and perhaps a water-melon, not deli- 
cately scooped out as with us, but eaten close to 
the rind, made up the meal. 

Walking in the breezy open court to dispel the 
heaviness of the night, we heard the shrill whistle 
of the locomotive, and at seven o'clock went on 
board the train for Kalatch, 

Farewell to the noble current of the Volga ! 
Unwatched of our eyes it would go down to the 
sea, while westward we followed its neighbor river 
to the Euxine. 

13 



THE COSSACK COUNTET. 



THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 



iTie Cossack 1 the Cossack ! his steed is his throne ; 

On the steppe and the desert his glory is known ; 
For he sweeps like the wind from the camp to the fray, 

And woe to the foe and the flying that day ! 
" False Pagan I " he cries, " are you slave — are you Shah— 

Now die by this lance, or take oath to the Czar!" 

The Cossack ! the Cossack 1 a flame of the South 
Is the glance of his eye, is the word of his mouth, 

For the steed that he rides — for the saint he implores — 
And, fairer and dearer, the girl he adores. 

The maiden's fond lover — the Czar's faithful warder — 

Ho ! drink to the Cossack, from border to border 1 

rriHE old Tartar Khans, and after them Peter 
the Great, tried to construct a canal near 
Tzarltsin, uniting the Volga and the Don. Inter- 
vening granite ridges and the lawless population of 
the region caused them to abandon the work. The 
railway, fifty miles long, which now connects them, 
— the only one in southeastern Russia except the 



198 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 

line nearly completed from Samara to Orenburg, — 
was built by an American company, and two trains 
run over it daily upon the arrival of the boats. 
The only water communication between the Black 
Sea and the Caspian is a canal leading from the 
Don, near its source, to the Oka which joins the 
Volga at Nijni Novgorod. 

A sandy, rolling, wind-blown plain stretches from 
river to river, with neither trees nor marked undu- 
lations except along the borders of the streams, 
which run in deep ravines. Wild thyme and rue 
grow here in abundance ; and melons, everywhere* 
cultivated, thrive wonderfully in the light, warm 
soil. Here and there were hamlets of rude houses, 
bare upon the plain, and great flocks of sheep crop- 
ping the coarse, brown grass. A little before ten 
o'clock a line of verdure appeared on the western 
horizon, and a few. minutes later we reached Ka- 
latch, by the Don. The commodious station was 
close to the river bank, and, descending the long 
stairs, we found the boat lying at the wharf and not 
to leave until the next morning. 

At Kalatch, a small town owing its existence to 
the railway, the Don is divided by an island, and 
where the boat lay it was a narrow stream, looking 



THE COSSACK COUNTRY, 199 

insignificant indeed compared with the majestic tide 
of the Volga. All was quiet about. The few pas- 
sengers, all Russians, who had come over with us, 
dropped into their appointed places on deck or in 
the cabin, and betook themselves to rest with Ori- 
ental resignation. A pile of bales and boxes was 
being leisurely stowed away on board, the stout 
porters moving as if they knew they had the day 
before them. So, also, moved the pliant waiter of 
whom we ordered breakfast and dinner in one. 
" Directly," was his amiable response, and in ex- 
actly three hours we were summoned to the table. 

Towards evening we went on shore and walked 
about the town. The wide, dusty road leading to 
it was hardly browner than the sod ; and the coarse 
grass, undisturbed by shrub or flower, grew to the 
very doors. There were perhaps twenty good 
houses of hewn logs built by the Government ; all 
the rest were poor cabins. It was market time in 
the central square, but there was little offered that 
was inviting, and no fruit except small, sour apples 
at five kopecks apiece. However, business hours 
were nearly over, and the only customers we saw 
tvere two old women hobbling home with their 
Dread and cucumbers, and several rough dogs hang- 
ing about the meat stall. 



200 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 

With the late train came a multitude of passen 
gers filling our boat to its utmost capacity. The 
deck was crowded with people wrapped in sheep- 
skins and coarse blankets, and carrying their pro 
visions — tea, black bread, and often dried fish an 
melons. The saloon, where we were already estab- 
lished, was appropriated to the " first class " lady 
voyagers, who came in with exclamations of fatigue, 
and, throwing off their travelling garments, slipped 
into the amplest of dressing-gowns, and sinking 
down on the pillows they had brought, abandoned 
themselves to the luxury of cigarettes. I had al- 
ready become accustomed to the sight of women 
smoking. Indeed, I doubt if ever Turk or Russian 
was more devoted to tobacco than a lady from Bu- 
charest, elegant in person and attire, who went 
with us up the Danube, and who spent the most 
of her time in the -close cabin below, that she might 
indulge in her favorite habit. One morning when 
we were passing through a beautiful district, I went 
down, and seeing her sitting in a cloud of smoke 
Baid to her, — 

" The air is delicious this morning, Madame, and 
the views on shore charming. Will you not come 
on leek a little while ? " 



THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 201 

" Thank you," she rephed, in languid French, 
'' but I prefer my cigarette." 

One of these Russians perhaps might have 
rivaled her, — an elderly woman with a gentle face 
and white, taper fingers that seemed quite at home 
in the nice art of rolling up the precious, pulver- 
ized leaves, — for when she was not smoking or 
sleeping, with her slips of paper and. her pretty bag 
filled with fragrant Latakia, she was thus preparing 
to smoke. 

At six o'clock the next morning the steamer was 
under way. All was animation on board. The 
officers and crew, calling and answering each other, 
had enough to do to keep the channel ; the cabin 
passengers, having their own provisions, were busy 
with breakfast ; while those on deck, accustomed 
to sleep upon bench and stove, or in summer upon 
the ground in the open air, sprang up, elastic, from 
the hard floor and addressed themselves to their 
bread and tea. We soon passed the island and 
came into the full river, but it was still so much 
narrower than the Volga that it seemed but an 
ordinary stream. Rising in a small lake in the 
government of Tula, the Don, once the eastern 
boundary of Europe, winds south a thousand miles, 



202 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 

and, receiving eighty tributaries, empties by severa^ 
mouths into the Sea of AzofF. Full of sand banks 
and islands, it runs usually with a calm, shallow 
current, but it is subject to violent inundations, 
when it converts the low shores into morasses and 
allows large ships to ascend hundreds of miles. In 
its valley are some of the most fertile lands of 
Russia, and forests of oak and pine accompany it 
through much of its course. 

AVe had not gone far before the keel scraped the 
sand and we were aground. Overboard jumped 
the crew, and standing up to their knees in water, 
aided the engine with pushing and prying and 
screaming till the boat was clear again. This 
scene was repeated frequently during the day, and 
the men appeared to be as much at home in the 
river as on deck. At ten o'clock we stopped at a 
small town where the steward and many of the 
passengers went ashore to buy bread, sweet and 
white. Here also we found grapes, enormous 
clusters but scarcely ripe, and melons which all on 
board seemed to be eating for the rest of the day. 
The shores were low and bordered partly with 
trees, apparently willows, while between the ver- 
dure ard the water was often a line of snowy 
sard. 



THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 203 

This is the land of the Don Cossacks, who fur- 
nish the army with more than seventy regiments 
and batteries of cavalry and horse artillery. Most 
individual of Russians, their country was for cen- 
turies the battle-ground of Pole and Muscovite, of 
Turk and Tartar, and they would have been driven 
out or exterminated if they had not possessed a 
genius for war. The Tartar term Cossack — li^ht- 
armed warrior — refers not to race but to mode of 
life. It is, with those who bear it, a name of 
honor, and any one of whose valor they are as- 
sured may be received as one of the tribe. Thus 
Mazeppa was adopted and in time chosen as chief. 
Their Headman is the Crown Prince, but all in- 
ferior rulers they elect from their own people with- 
out dependence upon the Government. Daring 
courage with them constitutes nobility. All are 
brothers and their lands are in common. Darker 
than the north-Russians, with full beards, which 
even the authority of Peter the Great could not 
force them to give up, the impetuous fire of their 
ancestors still burns in their blood and glows in 
their eyes. Exempt from taxation, from fifteen 
years oid to sixty they are liable to military service 
as cavalry soldiers, and no Arab of the desert is 



204 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 

more at home upon his steed than these sons of 
the steppe upon theirs. They conquered Siberia. 
They lead the way in Central Asia. They garri- 
son the forts, and keep the ever-advancing frontiers 
of the East and South. Woe to the foe, Christian 
or Mohammedan, when with lances in rest, and 
banners bright with their patron saints, shoutmg, 
they dash to the charge ! 

Their religion is that of Olga and Vladimir. 
They reverence the usages and cling to the super- 
stitions of the Ancient Faith, counting reform sacri- 
lege. No village of theirs but has its church and 
chime ; no house but shrines its sacred picture ; no 
soldier but goes to battle with the cross and the 
image of his guardian saint pressed to his breast. 

Trained to war, they pay little attention to agri- 
culture. Those near the river draw their support 
largely from the fisheries, and those on the steppe 
from their flocks and herds, while whatever arts 
and manufactures exist among them are in the 
hands of strangers. Their villages are rudely for- 
tified, and in regions exposed to plunder the cattle 
are, for safety, driven nightly within the inclosure. 
Each house has its garden for grapes and melons, 
and perhaps its patch of corn. 



THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 205 

It was pleasant to breathe the air of this wild 
land which had known neither serf nor lord, and 
to whose people liberty and peril are one ; for 
something of primitive nature lingers still in every 
breast and creates instant sympathy with the ex 
hilaration, the freedom, the simplicity of life in the 
saddle, the tent, the plain. The winds blowing 
from the steppe had floated their banners on a hun- 
dred fields. The horses that neighed or bounded 
away from the river brink at our approach, amid 
the wastes of Asia might bear their masters swift 
to victory, and then to fort or mountain pass, safe 
from the vengeful foe. The deep-mouthed dogs, 
baying from the hamlets, would defend the camp 
with their lives should Kalmuck or Kirghiz ma- 
rauder dare to enter. 

The boat anchored for the night at a little vil- 
lage whose straw-thatched roofs were just visible 
from the deck. 

Dawn ushered in the last day of summer, and on 
A broader but still shallow river, with posts driven 
here and there to mark the sand-bars, we held our 
way to the south. Many birds were about the 
shores — cranes, herons, ducks, and various wild 



206 THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 

fowl, hovering over the water or solemnly watch- 
ing for fish along its margin. As the boat ap- 
proached they took wing and, following the stream, 
alighted long reaches in advance ; and thus, alter- 
nately resting and flying, some of them accompa- 
nied us half the morning. 

There are no large towns near this part of the 
river, and the villages are quite unlike those of the 
Volga. Instead of square cabins, all of hewn logs 
or rough boards, the houses are like a tent in shape 
and their steep roofs are thatched with straw, so 
that it is often difficult to distinguish them from the 
large hay-stacks with which they are interspersed. 

All day the rolling plain stretched away on either 
hand with herds, and hamlets, and scattered corn- 
fields, and now and then a wind-mill lifting its 
arms to the air. Towards night, however, there 
appeared on the right a range of low, sandy hills, 
divided by ravines and dotted with thatched cot- 
tages — a peculiar, dreary scene, yet pleasing here 
from its novelty. The grass was greener than to 
the north, and great companies of cattle and horses 
w^ere feeding on the lower slopes. This was a sub- 
urb of Constantinovka, and passing a bend of the 
river we came to the town, an assemblage of the 
same thatched houses witli a few better structures. 



THE COSSACK COUNTRY. 207 

Here we exchanged our small, flat-bottomed boat 
for one larger and more agreeable. The amusing 
scenes we had witnessed before were repeated — 
people, high and low, hurrying back and forth with 
pillows and blankets and bags of sugar and tea — 
only that now the crowd was greater and Oriental 
dislike of haste had to yield to the necessity of se- 
curing sofa and deck-room. Plump went a pillow 
into the water. Down the gangway rolled the 
precious lumps that would have sweetened many a 
glass of tea. Blankets trailed along the planks and 
were trodden under foot of the throng. And the 
bewildered victims seemed to take it all as part of 
the penalty of travelling by steam I 



KOSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 



ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 



O placid Don 1 I see thee flow 
With shallow, snowy-sanded stream, 

While light the steppe-winds o'er thee blow, 
And cranes and gray-winged herons dream — 

Safe as beside some dark lagoon — 

Along thy banks in breezeless noon. 

Hie Cossack wanders from thy shore, 

But never finds a wave so fair; 
Thy summer lapse, thy winter roar, 

Still greet him in remotest air ; 
And death is sweet if he may lie, 
With cross above, thy waters by. 

\ COMPANY of people dark of skin and eyes 
and hair were on the shore as the boat came 
to anchor. Observant, yet indiiFerent, they chatted 
a moment over the new comer and then strode 
away, careless, it seemed, whether we went up or 
down the river. A mounted herdsman, in slouched 
hat and sheep-skin jacket, drove his horses down tc 



212 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 

the stream to drink, and halted a few feet from the 
landing. Sitting in his saddle, he looked straight 
before him, and when the last colt lifted its head, 
satisfied, from the water, he turned about and fol- 
lowed his charge away without having deigned to 
bestow upon us a single glance. 

Several women came on board here, adding to 
our number in the saloon. Black-eyed, stout, and 
vivacious, they had evidently journeyed from the 
interior, for they were brown with dust, and the 
waiting-maid was at once summoned to assist them 
at their toilets. Hastily laying aside their wide- 
waisted gowns (with the exception of those who in 
towns and cities follow French fashions, the Rus- 
sian women seem to believe in the old Muscovite 
idea that it is immodest for a woman to let the 
form of her waist be seen, or to go with her hair 
uncovered), they stood in turn before the one basin 
while the patient girl poured the water for their 
ablutions — not at once into the bowl, but in a 
small stream over their hands as they washed ; 
running water being here, as throughout the East, 
considered necessary to cleanliness and purity. All 
this without the least interruption to their voluble 
Russ, which seems, in the South, a softer languajre 
than one hears above Kazan. 



ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 213 

Gradually the boat grew quiet. Night came on. 
The last loiterer left the bank, and the only sounds 
heard from shore were the occasional barking of 
dogs and the distant lowing of cattle. 

The next morning ushered in September, but 
with us it was going towards summer, for every 
day brought milder air. The river-shores were 
still low and the distance varied by sandy ridges 
ahve with water-fowl. It was Sunday, but there 
was nothing on board the steamer to distinguish it 
from the rest of the week. 

In our descent we passed, on the right, the 
mouth of the small river Aksai. Staroi Tcher- 
kask, the former Cossack capital, is on an island 
formed by this tributary and the Don ; but it was 
so often inundated that early in this century a new 
site was chosen, twelve miles up the Aksai, and 
Novo Tcherkask became the capital of the country. 
The new town, away from the Don and unloved of 
the people, grows slowly. The old town, refusing 
to die, has still some fifteen thousand inhabitants, 
while its Greek and Armenian merchants carry on 
a brisk trade in the products of the fisheries and the 
wine from the neighboring vineyards. The one 



214 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 

with broad regular streets, with barracks and 
library and imposing cathedral, is Imperial. The 
other, with narrow lanes, and thatched houses, and 
dirt, and dogs, and inundations, is Cossack. 

At four o'clock we reached RostofF, at the head 
of the delta of the Don, and twenty miles above 
the Sea of AzofF; the most important town on the 
river, and the centre of trade for all this part of 
Russia. A hundred years ago a strong fort was 
built here as a store-house for munitions of war, — 
Fort St. Dimitri, — and about it the town has 
grown. Government has favored it and made it 
also a depot of provisions for the army, the for- 
tresses of the Caucasus, and the eastern shores of 
the Black Sea ; and now, with the adjacent Ar- 
menian town of Nakitchevan, it has some fifty 
thousand inhabitants. Stretching along the river, 
its great stacks of wool and skins, of timber and 
bark and leather heaped close to the shore, with 
its large warehouses, barracks, and churches, and 
the activity everywhere displayed, show its life and 
importance. 

The Armenians, driven from their own country 
by wars and oppressions, are found everywhere in 
eastern Europe, and are especially numerous in 




A COSSACK BOY. 



ROSTOFF AND TEE LO WER DON, 215 

Russia, with whose people they easily fraternize on 
account of the similarity of their Church creeds. 
Their capacity for trade is such, that a Turkish 
proverb says : " A Copt, two Greeks, and three 
Jews are required to deceive an Armenian." They 
are merchants, bankers, agents, peddlers. They 
manufacture woolen cloths and silks and jewelry, 
and everywhere by their quickness and sagacity 
they become prominent in commercial and financial 
affairs. Through the Armenian colonies of Mos- 
dok, Kisliar, and Astrakhan, those of Nakitchevan 
obtain rice, silk, wine, brandy, and all the other 
productions of the Caucasus ; and by frequenting 
the fairs of the provinces bordering upon the Don 
they have come, in large measure, to control the 
business of the region. Handsomest of races, you 
rarely see one among them that is not comely, 
and many are of striking beauty, — the eyes large 
and mournful, the nose prominent but finely out- 
lined, the mouth small and sweet. They formed 
more than half the busy crowd at the Rostoff land- 
ing, and to their dark, delicate faces the coarser 
Cossack physiognomy was an admirable foil. If 
their ancient king Ara possessed in royal degree 
the charms of his people, with an unsusceptible 



216 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 

heart, it is no marvel he won the passionate, de- 
stroying love of Semiramis. 

The boat, which w^ould not go below^ Rostoff, was 
in a few minutes deserted of its passengers, and we 
found it then so quiet and pleasant that we decided 
to remain on board till morning. At sunset we 
walked up the long slope into the town. There 
were many tall, noticeable public buildings, but 
most of the dwelling-houses were small structures, 
painted yellow, with thatched roofs and clumsy 
blinds at the windows. At the crest of the ridge 
on which the town is built was an open square, from 
whence we had a broad view over the river and the 
plain bathed in the rosy light. Here was a market 
and a church with beautiful green, star-spangled 
domes. The doors were open and we went in. 
Service was over, but a few late worshippers lin- 
gered at the shrines whose saints lost something 
of their grimness in that mellow gleam, and shone 
resplendent, if not merciful, from their settings of 
gold and silver. An odor of incense lingered in 
the air which the fresh breath from the river could 
not dispel. The conventional pictures of the Last 
Judgment and the Councils were on the walls, but 
altogether, with its side windows and its bright col- 



ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 217 

ors, it was the most cheerful church interior we had 
seen in Russia — most of the churches, fine as is 
the exterior, being so dark and gloomy as to sad- 
den rather than elevate the soul. In the square 
without, companies of people, chatting and laugh- 
ing, walked to and fro ; and a drunken man, the 
second we had chanced to see in the country, reeled 
down the street and disappeared in a cellar; but 
there was no noise or disorder. Opposite the 
church was a fruit-booth kept by an Armenian, his 
glowing face well set off by the piles of lemons and 
oranges about him. Among his stores were great 
baskets of grapes from the early vintage, the native 
plums of the Don, and the berries of the wild rose. 
The sun had gone down as we descended the hill, 
but, shining as it might have shone on the Hud- 
son, in its stead was the crescent moon, and under 
its soft rays we betook ourselves to slumber. 

No more fair-haired Russians. The multitude 
on the Taganrog steamer where we embarked next 
morning was a blending of the Tartar, Cossack, 
Greek, and Circassian peoples, inhabitants of these 
southern shores. The change was pleasant to the 
eye tired of the pale, blonde races that look fadeo? 
and expressionless beside these children of the sua 



218 ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 

We were now in the delta of the Don, and as the 
day was fine, we sat on the upper deck that we 
might command the view. While I write, I recall 
the exhilaration of that morning, dropping down an 
unknown river to an unknown sea. The broad 
stream was full of turns and windings, and its 
shores enlivened by a succession of small towns and 
villages similar to those we had seen in its upper 
course. Great herds of horses and gray cattle 
stood along the banks and in the water, and some- 
times the keepers with them up to their necks 
in the flood, as if it were the luxury that the 
Nile is to the Egyptians. Fishermen were busy 
with their nets, and gulls and myriad wild fowl 
wheeled and poised above, intent upon the waves. 
At one point we passed a small boat filled with 
women, towed by a horse which a boy was riding 
along the bank. The little craft swayed with the 
current and seemed in constant danger of over- 
turn or collision ; but its inmates, wrapped in rough 
jackets and with handkerchiefs tied over their 
beads, appeared as much at ease as if seated on 
the floors of their own cabins. Sloops and sail- 
boats of every kind became numerous. The coun- 
try grew flatter till at length it was a green plain 



ROSTOFF AND THE LOWER DON. 219 

Bcarcely above the level of the water. The river 
spread itself like a tranquil lake, and soon, rounding 
a curve, in the distant horizon wave and sky were 
one, and lo ! we had passed from the Don to the 
Azoff Sea I 



THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 



THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 



Saw you ever face so fearless, 

Saw you ever face so fair, 
As the young Circassian's yonder. 

Gazing, mournful, into air? 
How his glance, his kingly carriage, 

Shame the Mongols couched below I < 
Bliss to her who'll call him lover ; 

Death to him who'll find him foe. 

Shade of Helen ! there 's a Greek girl 

Might have dazzled Priam's son 1 
With such eyes, such shining tresses. 

Was thy Trojan bold, undone 1 
And if Paris were as princely 

As the Persian by her side, 
All the gods might give thee pity, 

Though a royal Spartan's bride. 

O these Border-Lands of Asia I 
What is in their sun, their air, 

That the women grow so beauteous, 
That the men such grandeur wear ? 



224 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 

Not the g-oddess loved of Odin, 
(Palest brow and perfect mouth,) 

Charms like this Levantine maiden, 
Blossom of the glowing South ! 

"TXT HEN we readied Taganrog the dust was 
" * whirlincr through its streets, and as there is 
nothing there of especial interest but the room in 
which Alexander I. breathed his last, we went 
directly on board the steamer for Kertch. 

Taganrog was founded by Peter the Great, as a 
port for the South. In his time a decrease was 
noticed in the waters of the Sea of Azoflf, and since, 
through sand brought down by the Don, it has 
grown, in this vicinity, so shallow that ships lie off 
a league from land, and divide their cargo among 
small boats which convey it ashore, or perhaps are 
met half-way by carts driven out to relieve them 
of their load. At present the chief business of 
Taganrog is the transfer of military stores to the 
Caucasus, but year by year its trade is slipping 
away to Kertch and Rostoff. 

Early the next morning w^e began our voyage to 
the south. The day was fine, the sea smooth, and 
as we skirted its western border the land was al- 
most constantly in view on our right, with the 



THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 225 

churches, as along the rivers, the most conspicuous 
objects. This sea has nowhere a depth of more 
than fifty feet, while in many parts it is much less. 
When a strong w^nd blows from shore, its adjacent 
bed is sometimes laid bare, and ships are at once 
aground, but as its bottom is a soft mud they are 
rarely injured. It abounds in fish, which are 
among the principal exports of its towns, — hence 
its Tartar name, Balik Denghis, — Fish Sea. 

All day the sun shone warm, and for the first 
time in Russia the thick clothing, so necessary 
farther north, began to be uncomfortable. Late in 
the afternoon we came to Marienpol, a town with 
an extensive trade. The Greek blood of its early 
colonists showed in the features and the picturesque 
attire of the boatmen busy with transferring freight 
to the hold of our steamer. I remember especially 
one man as he leaned over the boat, — his feet 
bare, his wide trousers rolled up to the knee and 
confined at the waist by a girdle, his scarlet shirt 
open at the throat, and his dark eyes and clustering 
hair made more remarkable by a straw hat, the 
brim loosely braided, and the unsplit strands gath- 
ered into a point to form the crown, and finished 
with a gay silken tassel. Here, among other things, 

15 



226 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 

we took on board various jars filled with butter, for 
the use of the Emperor's household at Yalta. I 
noticed them because each cover was fastened with 
a seal. Everything is sealed in Russia, even the 
padlocks of the boxes for the poor in the churches 
the people, it is said, thinking it a small sin to pick 
a lock, but having a regard for seals. 

Towards evening the sea became literally "a sea 
of glass," with neither ripple nor foam, but only a 
gentle sway and swell. Many ships with white, 
listless sails, stood here and there motionless on the 
flood. The sky was perfectly clear, and after the 
sun went down it was a great vault of changing 
blue and crimson, faint and warm, with every tint 
reflected in the sea, so that one could scarcely tell 
where wave ended and atmosphere began. 

The next morning we were at Kertch, on the 
straits of Yeni Kald, the quarantine station and the 
most important town of the Sea of Azoif. Though 
still a busy place, with exports of corn and wool, 
of salt from the adjacent lakes, and of fish from its 
own waters, it has never recovered from its bom- 
bardment during the Crimean war. Fortunately 
its valuable collection of antiquities had been pre* 
viously removed to St. Petersburg, so that only the 



THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 227 

museum building was left to be destroyed by the 
cannonade. In spite of its modern houses, and its 
fifteen thousand inhabitants, it has a lonely appear- 
ance, and the troops of dogs that infest its streets 
give it the semblance of an Oriental town. In the 
bare hill beyond it, site of the ancient Greek city, 
excavations are constantly carried on, and many 
beautiful and interestino; relics of that civilization 
which once flourished on these Scythian shores are 
brought again to light, — memorials of the time 
when Anacharsis the Younger walked through its 
orchards and gardens, and thought it the finest city 
of the world. In its vicinity was the great tumu- 
lus known to the Tartars as the " Hillock of the 
Brave," which, opened forty years ago, disclosed a 
chamber of hewn stone, wherein were found the 
remains of a Scythian chief with his wife, his at- 
tendants, and his favorite steed. His golden crown, 
his ornaments and robes and weapons, with the 
offerings made at his tomb, were found, untouched, 
as they had lain since before our era ; and now, 
with similar objects obtained in this region, they 
adorn the rooms of the Hermitage at St. Peters- 
burg. What a wonderful reahn is Russia, since, 
without quitting the firm land, she can enrich her 



228 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 

museums with the mammoths of the Polar rivers, 
and the Greek art of Southern seas ! 

Now we went on board a spacious boat of the 
Black Sea Line, the Grrand Duchess Olga. Never 
was a more varied company assembled than that 
gathered in its elegant saloons and on its broad 
decks ; — Russians from the interior going to the 
summer court and watering-place of Yalta, people 
following French fashions and speaking French or 
German as readily as Russ ; Greek women (one 
of them lovely as the fairest antique statue) with 
level eyebrows and abundant hair half concealed 
by the scarlet cap with its long, drooping tassel, 
women, all of whom needed only the illumination 
of the soul to become beautiful, and who looked up 
with a kind of childish helplessness to their hus- 
bands or fathers wrapped in loose garments bor- 
dered with fur ; natives of the Caucasus in their 
peculiar costumes, with features so regular that any 
one of the number might have sat for the typical 
Caucasian of an illustrated work on ethnology, 
most distinguished among them a Georgian Prince 
in the service of the Czar, an Apollo for face ana 
form, with a long tunic of fine yellow cloth, a cap 
of gray lamb-skin, and belt and cartridge boxes in 




A YOUNG CIRCASSIAN. 



THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS, 22S 

laid with silver ; Armenian traders sitting apart^ 
handsome as the Caucasians, but with sharp, sad 
lines in their faces ; Jews in their dark robes ; Tar- 
tars, slow-moving and indifferent ; nurses Avearin^ 
turbans shaped of a bright handkerchief and car- 
rying infants swathed, after the ancient custom, 
with bands of linen ; part of a regiment of soldiers 
ordered to Yalta, and a nondescript crowd of all 
the neighboring races, Asiatic and European. One 
of the Russians was a lady from the province of 
Kharkov who spoke English and seemed much 
pleased to meet Americans. " I am going to 
Odessa," said she. " I always go, once a year, to 
get the modes, for in the country where I live we 
have little of fashion. How much I should like 
to see America ! I once made a journey to Paris 
and London, and sometime, although it is so far, I 
hope to go to New York. America is tne land 
of Lincoln. Ah, how terrible was the news of 
his death I For three days I did nothing but walk 
about my house and say, Lincoln is dead ! Lincoln 
is dead!" 

A fresh wind blew through the straits of Yeni 
Kald, and the tranquil shallows of the Sea of Azoff 



230 THE AZOFF AND EUXINE SEAS. 

gave place to deeper water, green and covered with 
spray. As we swept into the Euxine, lo ! at oul 
left the mountains of Caucasus dark on the horizon, 
but fading as we held our course to the southwest. 
All day the light breeze and cloudless sun of morn- 
ing attended us, and the shore was just visible on 
our right. At sunset we reached Kaffa and an- 
chored in its beautiful bay, thinking of the days 
when it was Theodosia, and Athenian barks 
thronged its port for corn and honey and slaves. 
KafFa has been Russian for more than a hundred 
years, but in that time most of its Tartar inhabi- 
tants have emigrated to Turkey ; its mosque, copied 
from St. Sophia, and the finest in the Crimea, has 
fallen to decay; and at present it is inferior to 
Kertch in trade and population. Yet it looks well 
as seen from the water, with its tall buildings, its 
picturesque ruined forts, and its line of wind-mills, 
grotesque against the sky. 

Many bales of avooI were taken on board here 
for England ; and then, in the cool twilight, we 
sought the open sea and the Bay of Yalta. 



YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 



YALTA AND THE CEIMEAN TARTARS. 



And still the Tartar loves the shores 
The Euxine washes, and deplores 
The glories of his race, gone by I 
And often when the east winds sigh — 
The winds that warm from Asia blow — 
He dreams *tis the murmur of hosts that go 
Forth with Genghis and Timour strong; 
And his dark eyes flash, and he hears the song 
Of the victors sung where the tent lines glisten, 
While, couched on carpets Bokhara wove 
For the chiefs that over their pastures rove, 
The Khan and his jeweled ladies listen. 

But the wind goes by, and a roll of drums 
From the fort of the conquering Russian comes ; 
And their ships sail over the Euxine's foam 
And their bells ring clear from tower and dome : 
" It was written in Fate's decree ; " he cries, 
" A llah requite us in Paradise ! " 

A ROSY sunrise flushed the sea as we anchored 

in the Bay of Yalta. Precipitous wooded 

mountains circle it round, and the town, beginning 



234 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 

at the water's edge, climbs a little way up the 
slope. It would be a lovely spot anywhere upon 
earth, but after the steppe it is Paradise. No 
wonder the Imperial family take the long journey 
from the cold marshes of St. Petersburg to look 
upon such scenes and breathe such air. Small 
boats conveyed the passengers ashore, and as we 
stepped on to the wharf we saw the soldiers, already 
disembarked, sitting and standing in groups on the 
beach, cleaning their guns and adjusting their uni- 
forms preparatory to entering the royal grounds. 

As the summer residence of the Czar, a favorite 
bathing-place, and the centre of traffic in Crimean 
wine, Yalta is important. During the warm season 
it is thronged with visitors, and it was with some 
trouble that we obtained rooms at the H6tel de 
Yalta — a rambling old house built round an inte- 
rior court, with bare floors and ancient furniture, 
yet delightful to us who, since leaving Kazan, had 
spent but a single night away from a boat, and that 
n the station-house at Tzaritsin. One must de- 
scend the Volga and the Don to appreciate the 
luxury of an ample apartment and a bed with two 
sheets and a white pillow cover. 

After breakfast we went in an open carriage. 



YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 235 

with three horses abreast and a Tartar driver 
across the heights above the town to the Tartar 
village of Usof upon a hill-side fronting the sea. O 
the pleasure of that ride ! The sky blue as ours, 
with great fleecy clouds drifting over it ; the 
balmy air lightly stirred by the breeze blowing to 
shore ; below us the Euxine flashing in the sun, 
and about us the rich vegetation of this favored 
clime — pines, larches, junipers, cypresses, oaks, 
and walnuts ; vineyards on the southern exposures, 
and in the valleys the mulberry, the pomegranate, 
the olive, the laurel, the fig, and sometimes the 
orange ; fields of tobacco ; blackberry bushes laden 
with fruit, and the lavish clematis overrunning the 
walls. 

With a fine instinct for natural beauty the Tar- 
tars have everywhere chosen the loveliest sites for 
their villages. This of Usof clusters in the hollow 
and clings to the hill-side overlooking the sea, while 
just beyond it precipitous cliffs rise from the water 
as if to guard the retreat, and the whole air is filled 
with the music of dashing wave and spray. It 
might have been transported from the slopes of 
Lebanon, so like was it to a Syrian town with its 
small, flat-roofed houses rising terrace above ter- 



236 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 

race, and its dogs that started up to bark at the 
strangers. 

Here, as elsewhere, the Tartars are a comely 
race; stout but symmetrical in form, the face 
broad, the eyes black or bluish-gray with heavy 
lashes, and the nose often high and aquiline. The 
dress of the men was half way between that of an 
Arab and a Russian. The women, shy but un- 
veiled, wore wide trousers and loose upper gar- 
ments ; some were barefoot, others had boots of 
yellow leather, and all let their hair hang to the 
waist in fine braids. Rarely have I seen prettier 
children — plump, grave little creatures in queer 
caps and frocks, peeping timidly round the corners 
of the houses as we approached, and then suddenly 
darting within. Two groups were collected in an 
open balcony with an old man for a teacher, and 
from small books before them they chanted to- 
gether with only less noise than those Vamb^ry 
heard in the bazaar of Bokhara. 

In an inclosure near one of the houses several 
men and women were at work making cider ; the 
women first pounding the apples in a large wood- 
en trough after which they were put into a rude 
press, while the juice was ''boiling down " in a 




TARTAR BOYS. 



YALTA AND TEE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 237 

arge, shallow copper pan over a fire kindled on 
the ground. The picturesquely attired men and 
women busy with the fruit ; the bright-eyed chil- 
dren playing about ; the grain, the apricots, the 
nuts, the tobacco, the onions and red peppers dry- 
ing in and around every house, made a scene of 
rustic plenty and simplicity, charming to behold. 
One of the young women offered us cider in a 
wooden bowl ; another brought a basket of hazel- 
nuts ; and we were free to pick the ripe, delicious 
berries of the great mulberry trees at the foot of 
the hill. It was a mode of existence that en- 
chanted me, tired of the artificial, complicated life 
of the West, and had I followed the impulse of the 
moment I should have sworn allegiance to the 
Prophet and taken up my abode in Usof by the 
sea ! 

Tartars make up the larger part of the popula- 
tion of the Crimea. The power of their haughty 
Khans decreased until, nearly a hundred years ago, 
Sahim, the last of the line, gave up his domains to 
the Russians, and for this was enticed to Constanti- 
nople by the indignant Turks, whose vassal he had 
been, and put to death. It was one of his luxuri 
ous predecessors who, when poisoned by a Greek a* 



238 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 

Bender, sent for his musicians that he might fall 
asleep pleasantly. And now their ancient palace, 
" Seraglio of Gardens," stands like the Alhambra, a 
monument of splendor passed away. Many of their 
mosques are in ruins, while those families among 
them most rigidly attached to their Faith and their 
traditions have sought on Turkish soil freedom from 
Christian rule. Yet those who remain seem con- 
tent and light-hearted; their bearing is easy and 
independent ; and with the belief that all events 
are decreed, they resign themselves to their fate. 
Doubtless in an extreme of trial and mortification 
they are consoled by that saying of Mohammed's 
so grateful to their fierce kindred, the Turkomans : 
" This world is a Prison for Believers and a Para- 
dise for Unbelievers." As a race they take life 
sunnily, and with their primitive habits, and their 
trust in destiny, are disposed to idleness ; yet they 
readily endure fatigue and are courageous and true- 
hearted. They have some manufactures of felts 
and camel's hair cloth, but most of them are agri- 
culturists or shepherds. Their land is irrigated and 
often well tilled ; and on the steppes they have large 
herds of sheep and cattle, and by their nomadic in- 
stinct can find their way even when the trackless 



YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 239 

plains are white with snow. Their favorite food 
is mutton roasted on skewers, with thin cakes of 
bread, after the fashion of the East. They delight 
in fruits, and are enormous consumers of tobacco. 
Unavoidably they will share the progress of the 
Empire, and they will perhaps play an important 
part in its future. 

In the warm evening twilight we walked about 
Yalta. The whole population, on foot or in car- 
riages, thronged the streets, from the Emperor, 
attired as a private gentleman, to the Tartars in 
black lamb -skin caps ornamented with colored 
beads. The music of a military band came from 
the barracks, and laughter and the hum of voices 
were heard on every side. Here and there were 
booths for the sale of fruit, especially the grapes of 
the country, large white and purple pyramids, deli- 
cious for eating, but which have not yet produced 
superior wines. In the shops were piles of gray- 
blue lamb-skins from the plains near Kertch — a 
color peculiar to the Crimea, and said, though I 
know not how truly, to be owing to a plant upor 
ivhich the sheep feed. 

The varied crowd, the soft air, the mountains, 



240 YALTA AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS. 

and the sea won us to prolong our stroll till the 
pines were dim against the horizon and day had 
given place to stars. Then we turned back to the 
hotel in company with a group of Tartars saunter- 
ng homewards, — for, like all Mohammedans, they 
keep early hours, — and the last person we saw on 
the promenade was the Georgian prince, looking 
strikingly handsome in an embroidered white tunic 
and a cap of snowy lamb-skin, which he raised in 
graceful recognition as we passed him by. 



THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 



THE CKIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 



Cross but this rocky height, and lol 

A valley rare as Rasselas 

Found in the Abyssinian pass, 
With warmth and beauty all aglow I 
Where for Tartar mosque and royal villa 
Is many a shining porphyry pillar, 
With marbles for arch and floor and stair 
Veined with vermilion or amber fair; 
And fountains fed by the rills that fall 
Cool and clear from the mountain wall. 
Where the olive and orange and nectarine 
Ripen the sea-side gardens in, 
And the winds are sweet as the breeze that sighs 
Over the meadows of Paradise 1 — 
Yea, and the Blessed there might crave 
Alupka, pride of the cliff and wave I 

A 1 THEN the next day's shadows began to slope 

eastward we left Yalta for the drive across 

the country to Sevastopol. The September sky 

was without a cloud, and the warmth of the suu 



244 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 

was lessened by a breeze from the water, produ- 
cing that perfect temperature in which one is nei- 
ther conscious of heat nor cold. 

Our road lay along the slope of the hills between 
the heights and the sea. Yalta, with its pictu- 
resque church, its back -ground of pines, and its 
circular bay, soon disappeared. Passing on by 
pleasant homes we reached, at a little distance, the 
villa of the Empress — Livadia. It is a handsome 
structure — warm brown in color, with beautiful 
grounds descending to the shore — a cheerful, un- 
pretending place, where, if anywhere, it would 
seem care might be forgotten. On the green 
sward just beyond the gate, companies of soldiers 
were dining in the open air, and officers in Circas- 
sian costume went to and fro. Beyond, and still 
between the road and the sea, was the palace of 
the Grand Duke Michael, and, still further, that of 
the Grand Duchess Helen ; but long reaches of 
park-like grounds separate them and leave each 
alone in loveliness and dignity. 

It is not solely the royal family who come hither 
for summer delight. All the coast is dotted with 
the villas of the nobb and the wealthy, while those 
*vho cannot keep a permanent residence spend a few 



THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 245 

weeks here during the bathing season, and go back, 
refreshed, to the monotony of the interior. 

The Crimean range of mountains begins near 
Kertch, and following mainly the line of the coast, 
ends in a bold promontory near Sevastopol. Its 
highest peak, the '' Tent Mountain " of the Tar- 
tars, rises more than five thousand feet above the 
Euxine level, and is a mark for steppe and sea. 
To the north is a boundless plain with brackish 
lakes but neither springs nor rivers — a plain 
where chill winds blow and hot suns beat without 
barrier or shade to soften their power ; and where 
in a long day's ride you would see only wanderers 
with their herds, and flocks of solemn storks and 
eager gulls hovering over the lagoons. 

Cross the range to the south, and you are in the 
paradise of Russia. The air is bland. The trees 
and fruits have almost a tropical richness and va- 
riety. Noble forests, vineyards, and gardens every- 
where meet the eye, while streams of pure water 
flow through the ravines, irrigating the soil and 
supplying the fountains, and beneath all spreads 
the Euxine, smooth or ruffled, as the wind may 
blow. The blue sky, the transparent air, the val- 
leys steeped in light and warmth, the mountain! 



246 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 

clear-cut against the horizon, the dark-eyed Mos- 
lem villagers, and the tideless sea washing the 
shores, constantly recalled Syria and the landscapes 
of Lebanon. 

But although the value of land here has greatly 
increased since the introduction of the vine, its fer- 
tility and beauty are still only half developed. The 
mountains, too, have unknown riches of marbles — 
some red and white, some of a sienna tint, some 
dark with lustrous veins — with fissures which 
earthquakes have made, inviting builders to the 
quarry. Ah, the stately dwellings thej yet shall 
fashion, and the gardens that shall bloom about 
them ! 

Now our road plunged into the shadow of oaks 
which might have framed a man-of-war, and of 
walnuts broad-boughed and fragrant as those that 
line the Barada above Damascus. Then it emerged 
upon an open slope with the mountains towering 
above us, and, below, the sea, blue that day as the 
Mediterranean, and sparkling in the sun. And 
everywhere, in quiet dells and sheltered nocks, and 
by the side of a narrow stream that wound its way 
down the steep, were the rustic houses and vil- 
lages of the Tartars. One would suppose that on 



THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 247 

whis high-road across the Crimea they would lose 
their shyness ; but the pretty children fled at our 
approach, and a woman whom we overtook, a 
woman who from her attire — full trousers, yellow 
slippers, hair in tiny braids, and a head-dress orna- 
mented with coins — mio;ht have walked out of 
Nablus or Ramleh, drew quickly across her face 
the bright-figured mantle that covered her shoul- 
ders, and turned away till we passed by. 

We had been for some miles on the domain of 
Prince WoronzofF — the distinguished Russian no- 
ble who has done so much to benefit this region 
and make known its attractions — and soon we 
came to Alupka, his sea-side residence, and halted 
at its comfortable inn. 

Palace is a word of indefinite signification. 
There are royal abodes in Europe, popularly called 
©alaces, which are far less grand and luxurious 
^han many American homes ; but this of Alupka 
deserves the name in its fullest meaning. The 
mountains here come almost within a stone's throw 
of the shore. The palace stands upon a bank that 
slopes to the water, and behind it Ai Petri climbs 
a thousand feet, broken into bare, picturesque 



248 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 

points which resemble, in miniature, the Needles 
of the Alps. Square in form and Oriental in style, 
it is built of a greenisli porphyry taken from the 
adjacent cliff, and is in perfect harmony with the 
landscape, as are all buildings whose materials are 
fi'om the quarries peculiar to the region about 
them. The Finland granite of St. Isaac's is as fine 
in the dull atmosphere of the North as the shining 
marble of the Parthenon beneath the brilliant sky 
of Greece ; and, under the Crimean heaven, this 
pile of olive-tinted stone, w^arm as the sunbeams 
and rich as the shadows, rises, a natural feature 
of the scene. 

Between hio;h, windino; walls of the same stone 
overgrown with vines, and not unlike the entrance 
to Warwick Castle, you approach the house. Be- 
fore you it stands, beautiful in symmetry of design, 
and in the delicate carving of its mouldings and 
ornaments. The encircling grounds are set with 
walnut and apricot and orange and fig and pome- 
granate trees ; varied with thickets of odorous ever- 
greens, and adorned with blossoming vines and 
shrubs, and with beds of gorgeous flowers ; while 
through them runs a crystal stream which descends 
from the hills. Beyond, and a little way up the 



THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 249 

llope, — toleration pleasant to behold ! — out of the 
mass of foliage gleams a Tartar mosque, with swell- 
ing dome and minaret, where, every day, turning 
east and west and north and south, the muezzin 
calls the Faithfid to prayer ; and above soar the 
cliffs, — now sharp against the sky, now wreathed 
with clouds, — and seeming lofty and inaccessible 
enough to be the haunt of eagles and the inspira- 
tion of dreams. 

Within all was as rare and striking as without, — 
a mansion fit for a Russian prince to rear on Mos- 
lem soil. A Tartar who seemed, in the absence of 
the family, to have a certain charge, showed us 
over it with entire politeness and propriety. The 
ceilings were of oak, and the mantles and the foun- 
tains in the spacious dining-room, — fountains fed 
by the mountain stream, — of the most elegant na- 
tive marbles ; while the furniture and tapestries 
were almost wholly Turkish or Persian in pattern 
and arrangement. 

In the library, a noble room at one end of the 
main building, besides the treasures of Continental 
learning, there were many English books and peri- 
odicals lying within easy reach, with leaves freshly 
cut as if they had been read and enjoyed. Among 



250 THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 

the artistic things scattered about, I particularly re- 
member one of those exquisite paper-weights from 
Ekaterineburg, — a bunch of cherries of reddest 
cornelian, with leaves of a green Siberian stone, 
the branch dropped upon a slab of dark-hued, pol- 
ished jasper. 

But the splendor of the house is on the side 
fronting the sea. The great windows open upon 
it, and to the shore you go down by stately stairs, 
broken into three flights, with erect, sitting, and re- 
clining lions, — the last copied from Can ova's in St. 
Peter's, — at either side of the three broad spaces 
of the descent. And before you spread its waves, 
blue and far to the horizon, w4th white sails here 
and there, and a fresh breeze blowing landward 
that may have cooled itself on the precipitous sides 
of the Balkan or among the snow-covered peaks 
of the Caucasus. 

As we stood upon the terrace and looked above 
and below, I called to mind the delightful resi- 
dences we had seen in the Old World, — Eton 
Hall, with its forest avenues, and the Dee winding 
through its meadows ; Chatsworth in its beaute- 
Dus valley; Inverary, with its beeches and its high- 
land setting of loch and mountain ; the Villa of 



THE CRIMEAN COAST AND ALUPKA. 251 

Prince Oscar near Christlania, with its wide out- 
look over green fields and clear fiords and reaches 
of sombre pines ; castles by the Rhine and the 
Rhone, and palaces beneath Italian skies and in 
Eastern lands, — and I thought if one were to say 
to me, " Choose for yourself the rarest of these,'* 
I would answer, " Give me Alupka by the Eux- 
inel'' 



BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 



BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 



O Baidar Gate I lone Baidar Gate I 
What glories by thy portals wait 1 — 
Beyond the pines, wide-boughed and old, 
Cliffs such as climb in Alpine hold ; 
Above, the blue Crimean sky 
Where, in still noons, the eagles fly, 
And poise as if 'twere bliss to be 
Becalmed upon that azure sea 1 
Below, the Euxine with its sails 
Fanned by the cool Caucasian gales; 
And, all between, the glen, the glade, 
Where Tartar girls their tresses braid, 
And slopes where silver streamlets run, 
And grapes hang, purple, in the sun. 

And when, within the wood-fire's glow, 
Fond friends tell tales of long ago, 
And each recalls some lovely scene 
By mountain pass or meadow green, — 



256 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY, 

If they shall turn and ask of me, 
The rarest glimpse of earth and sea, 
I'll say, with memory's joy elate, 
« 'Tis Baidar Gate ! 'tis Baidar Gate 1 " 

TT was another cloudless morning when we left 
Alupka for Sevastopol. 

The mountains now retreated from the sea, and 
we traversed for some distance a country half val- 
ley, half upland, fruitful and pleasant, but less cul- 
tivated than that nearer Yalta. The little hamlets 
of the Tartars were scattered here and there, and 
we passed many of the men with loads of hay, — 
their small cattle moving lazily, and their cart- 
wheels, clumsily made of wood, and without tires, 
creaking like the water-wheels of Egypt. They 
like the noise, however, and say only a thief is 
afraid to make it. 

Then we began to ascend, and were soon above 
valley and upland, with the bare cliffs on our right, 
and the sea, far below, at our left. The road 
wound along the mountains, turning with sharp 
angles and offering at every turn a more command- 
ing view. The air was pure and sweet, and as the 
sun mounted higher, the dews rose in cloudy va- 
pors and drifted over the cliffs, while eagles sailed 



BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 257 

above them in the upper sky, likening them to the 
mistj precipices and eyries of Glencoe. 

Steadily climbing, we ascended till at a height of 
seven hundred feet we reached the summit of the 
Pass and the Gate of Baidar. This is an orna- 
mental arch of masonry built as a barrier across the 
road, so that travellers coming from Sevastopol can 
have no sight of the sea until it bursts upon them 
as they emerge from the portals. 

For some time we had forborne to look back ; 
but now, with great peaks rising about us, we dis- 
mounted to enjoy the scene. Lo ! at our feet the 
lovely landscape ; and, beyond, the sea — radiant, 
glorious, losing itself in the distant blue ! So cloud- 
less was the sky, so transparent the air, that it 
seemed as if, with steady gaze, we might discern 
the shining summits of the Caucasian chain, and 
catch, in the southwest, the gleam of the minarets 
of Stamboul ! Silent as we stood, looking afar, an 
eagle wheeled, in low flight, just above us ; and the 
droning songs of Tartars with their teams came up 
from the valley on the wind. Then we passed 
under the Gate, and the superb picture became a 
vision of memory. 

17 



258 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY. 

Our road now descended into the Vale of Baidar, 
one of the most charming portions of the Crimea, 
though with but few inhabitants and little culture. 
Through it runs the Tchernaia, falling into the sea 
at Sevastopol. On either side were forests of oak, 
beech, walnut, alder, and poplar, with wild fruit 
trees, and many elegant shrubs, among them the 
juniper and the laurel ; w^hile graceful vines — 
oftenest the clematis — clung to their trunks and 
drooped from their boughs. Hares and other game 
abound in this valley, and earlier in the year it is 
vocal with the songs of nightingales. 

It was too late for flowers. Wherever the turf 
was not shaded it was brow^n with the sun ; but in 
the spring the region is a garden filled with tulips 
and scarlet poppies, with thyme and crocuses and 
wild hyacinths, and many a gay bloom unknown to 
colder fields. 

The forest passed, we came out upon the open 
vale, and saw before us a dilapidated Tartar vil- 
lage, with the post-station, a low, wooden house, in 
its midst. Alighting at the door, whose latch lifted 
with a string, we were ushered through a bare 
apartment — evidently the common guest-room — 
into one larger and more comfortable, and which 



BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY 259 

leemed to be the parlor of the establishment. The 
uneven floor was spread with a coarse carpet — 
green paper curtains shaded the windows — and in 
the extreme corner were several pictures of saints 
in metallic frames, and beneath them a little table 
covered with books of devotion. From the side 
windows the long, narrow kitchen was visible, 
opening upon an interior court ; its cooking utensils 
hanging upon nails and its store of crockery dis- 
played in a doorless cupboard. A Tartar woman, 
with a yellow handkerchief over her head, was busy 
with the pots and pans ; and beyond were the sta- 
bles, and men caring for the horses. 

Adjoining the " parlor '* was a bed-room — the 
bed round and high with feathers and covered with 
an elaborate patch-work quilt. Here two comely 
young girls, daughters of the station-keeper, were 
busy folding and ironing clothes which looked white 
and clear as those of the most fastidious New Eng- 
land housekeeper. They wore short skirts and 
loose sacques of calico ; and while the brown hair of 
one was closely braided, the other had her lighter 
locks prisoned in curl-papers ; but, disappearing for 
a moment, she returned with flowing ringlets and 
a string of bright beads about her fair neck. 

We could speak but few words of Russ, and 



260 BAIDAR GATE AND VALLEY, 

they not a word of anything else ; yet we grew 
quite social and they entertained us by their 
tact and liveliness. They submitted their nicely- 
starched frills to our inspection, and drew from the 
clothes-basket under-garments with edgings and let- 
ters of their own embroidery. On the table was 
an old, highly-colored fashion plate, and the elder 
handed it to me with an air which said, " We, too, 
know something of the great world." Then, at 
our request, she took a guitar from its case, at the 
foot of the bed, and they both sang and played sev- 
eral songs in a simple, pleasing style. 

Presently the mother appeared — a woman ex- 
actly like her daughters, only stouter and graver 

— and announced that our lunch was ready. Set 
upon the small table we found a quaint urn filled 
with delicious coffee which had been roasted since 
our arrival, and rich cream with rusks. A few 
minutes later the carriage was brought to the door, 
and amid pleasant-sounding Russian farewells we 
bid the family good-morning. 

" Who knows ? " we said, as we drove away. 
" Those frills and edgings may be part of the young 
girls' wedding trousseau. However it be, may they 
win what is doubtless the height of their ambition 

— kindly husbands and stations of their own." 



J 



SEVASTOPOL. 



SEVASTOPOL. 



Over the Dead is a radiant sky, 

And a light wind blows from the Vale of Baidar 
But what care they as they mutely lie — 

Column and captain, steed and rider ? 

Tulips and poppies can never bloom 
Dear to their slumber as English daisies ; 

Nor the nightingale's warble in bowery gloom 
Atone for the skylark's rapturous mazes. 

Ghostly cities and nameless graves — 
This is the sum of the battle's story ! 

And the wind of Baidar the brown grass waves, 
And sighs above them, " Alas for Glory 1 " 

rilHE plain crossed, we came to a range of hills 
— the subsiding: swells of the Yaila chain — 
and toiling slowly up the ascent, reached a high 
level, the battle-ground of the Crimean war. On 
our left was Balaklava, its bay just visible through 
a ravine : on our ri<rht the Heio-hts of Inkerman 



264 SEVASTOPOL. 

Cathcart's Hill covered with graves, and many a 
spot famous in the story of the tiaie. Few habita- 
tions were in sight, and the whole upland, rich but 
neglected, and encircled by tawny mountains tree- 
less and glowing in the sun, was strikingly like 
that battle-plain of Palestine — Esdraelon. 

The day was declining, and without lingering 
among its mournful scenes, between bare hills we 
hastened down the sloping road that led to the 
town. Many Tartars passed us, stretched at full 
length upon their empty carts, while the plodding 
cattle picked their unguided way along the broad, 
dusty track. Then came a distant glimpse of the 
Bea, and soon we w^ere in the suburbs of the noted 
stronghold of the Crimea. 

Demons of Destruction ! What a hideous spec- 
tre, a frightful ruin, met our gaze for that which 
had been Sevastopol — the August City ! Long 
lines of buildings, once lofty structures of stone, 
now mere shells, roofless, windowless, with shat- 
tered columns, or but single walls and foundations, 
and all scarred and blackened and battered, with 
heaps of rubbish at their base; the unrivaled 
harbor deserted, and life and activity only where 
new dwellings had been reared upon the wreck of 



SEVASTOPOL. 265 

the old — a sight to make one forever shocked and 
disgusted at the thought of war ! The very sunh'ght 
seemed to pale before the desolation ; and it was 
with a sigh of relief that we escaped from the mel- 
ancholy streets into the hotel. 

A quiet day's rest, with stories of the bombard- 
ment from our German landlord (one of the few 
citizens who did not leave the place during the 
war), and we drove out again to see the burial 
fields and the scenes of the conflict. We had be- 
come a little accustomed to the devastation, and 
could now see isolated buildings and parts of 
streets redeemed from the general ruin. Work- 
men were busy upon a cathedral shrining some 
eminent officers killed in the siege ; and, over the 
bay, the Russian Monumental Church lifted its 
cross in memory of the brave. 

Sevastopol has a commanding site, and its revi- 
val is only a question of time. House by house 
and square by square the resurrection will go on ; 
and, doubtless, some future day, prouder than ever 
it will bear the name of the August City and the 
Stronghold of the Euxine. 

Now we came to the high, rolling plain above 



266 SEVASTOPOL. 

the town, sloping on one side to the valley towards 
Balaklava, and rising, on the other, to the Heights 
of Inker man — naked and cleft and brown as the 
mountains of Moab. The soil is good, but almost 
the whole extent is a bare, weed-growm waste, with 
only here and there a dwelling. 

On a ridge overlooking the sea is the French 
Cemetery. It is a square, wdth uniform, appro- 
priate, handsome tombs along its sides, and a mon- 
umental one in the centre, having marble slabs 
upon which are inscribed the names of the officers 
of the various regiments there interred. There 
are walks about, and the unoccupied spaces are 
filled with plants and flowers. A wall of substan- 
tial masonry incloses it, and both this and the 
avenue through which you approach are shaded by 
locust-trees. At the entrance is a small, neat 
house occupied by the keeper, who receives eight 
himdred dollars a year for caring for the grounds. 

But what shall be said of the Burial Places of 
the English ? 

After the pomp and circumstance of their com- 
ing hither ; after the charge of the Light Brigade, 
and countless deeds of signal valor ; after heroic 
patience under suffering, and at last, for so many, 



SEVASTOPOL. 267 

death in this aHen land, it is amazing that the 
dead should be left to lie, apparently friendless and 
forgotten. There are perhaps twenty small inclos- 
ures scattered about ; the principal one surrounded 
by a low, ordinary wall, with a single poor monu- 
ment and a few head-stones, but most of its graves 
without slab or number. 

There was neither shrub nor tree to relieve the 
poverty of the place. The wild flowers had with- 
ered long before in the fierce heat, and tiny white 
snails clung to the dead grass and gave it an ap- 
pearance of utter neglect and barrenness. Outside 
these pitiful grounds, the slopes and hollows are 
dotted with graves which have nothing to distin- 
guish them from the common soil ; where the stray 
cattle may crop the turf, and the roving Gypsy 
pitch his tent, unmolested. And, for all, the only 
requiem is the wind moaning over the hill, or per- 
chance the plaintive song of the nightingale ; and 
the only " Decoration Day," when spring with 
gentle fingers strews the sod with scarlet poppies 
(how much dearer were the pink-tipped daisies of 
the fields at home !) and the train of brilliant, 
evanescent blooms with which she keeps here the 
carnival of the year I 



268 SEVASTOPOL. 

At the Cemetery — for with this name they dig- 
nify the largest of the inclosures — I sought in vain 
among the burnt grass for a flower. Just as we 
turned to leave, I found, under the shade of a pro- 
jecting stone in the wall, a little blossom of almost 
as deep a color as the purple-black lilies of Pales- 
tine — a bloom which might well have sprung from 
the dust of heroes unremembered. 

It lies before me as I write, the leaves darkly 
dyed, as when it grew beneath the Crimean sky, 
and with its hue come back the wide, desolate 
plain ; the tawny mountains ; the wind rustling the 
grass over the unknown graves. God grant the 
mothers and wives and children of those who rest 
there, truly loved and lamented, may never know 
how sad and untended is the place of their repose ! 
If England will do nothing worthy of her soldiers, 
dead, let her rear a pillar among the fast-sinking 
mounds, and write on its front, Oblivion I 



ODESSA. 



F 



ODESSA. 



Dreaming and looking seaward, 

No longer the warders wait, 
Guard of the Crescent banner, 

Gleaming on tower and gate — 
The banner unfurled by the Prophet, 

The banner in league with Fate. 

Nor boom the guns of the Fortress, 

When sunset airs blow free, 
While the warriors kneel, as the echoes 

Die over steppe and sea — 
Kneel and pray that the Moslem, 

Lord of the world may be. 

Gone are the Turk, and the Crescent, 

And the Fortress of Khodja Bey; 
And lol in their place, Odessa, 

And the Russ with a grander sway — 
The Russ and the Royal Eagle, 

That makes the Fate his prey I 

ROM the deck of the Odessa steamer we 
watched the ruined streets and dismantled 



272 ODESSA. 

forts of Sevastopol sink beneath the waves, while 
we sped westward over an unruffled sea. At even- 
ing the boat lay for an hour off Eupatoria, whose 
white buildings had a pleasing appearance, as seen 
from the water. Then her prow was turned from 
the shore, and we stood west again. 

It was noon of the next day when we came to 
Odessa, the great commercial city of Southern 
Russia, and, before the rise of Chicago, the largest 
grain-market in the world. Built on a high lime- 
stone bluff, with long piers reaching out to protect 
the harbor, and a gigantic staircase of stone, sup- 
ported on arches, and extending from the height to 
the shore, it looks finely as you approach it from 
the sea, through the many ships and boats loading 
and discharging their cargoes. 

Originally a Turkish fortress, it was taken by 
the Russians during the reign of the Empress Cath- 
erine, and a town at once begun as a port for the 
grain regions of the South. From the first it seems 
to have been energetic and ambitious. It peti- 
tioned the Emperor Paul for a grant of armorial 
bearings ; for a free port ; and for immunities like 
those accorded to Revel and Riga ; and, as a sug- 
gestion of what its trade was to become, it sent hinr 



ODESSA. 273 

the rare present of three thousand fine oranges. 
He received the fruit, but rejected the petition, ex- 
cept as it related to the coat of arms. His succes- 
sors, however, have granted all; and with their 
favor and the judicious help and counsel of able 
men — conspicuous among them the Princes Wo- 
ronzofF, and the Duke de Richlieu, a French exile, 
who, for many years, made it his home — it has at- 
tained its present size and importance. Its growth 
would have been more rapid but for the slow, inad- 
equate communication with the surrounding coun- 
try. The railway now finished to Kieff, and others 
which are sure to follow, will fill its granaries and 
freight its ships with the wealth of the vast inte- 
rior. 

The steppe, in its immediate vicinity, is totally 
unfit for vegetation. The soil cracks and becomes 
like stone in the sun, and it is only close to the 
coast, and by tlie most assiduous care, that vine- 
yards and gardens are made productive. Fierce 
storms from the east and southeast sweep over it. 
In winter it is cold and misty and muddy ; in sum- 
mer hot and choked with dust. At the latter sea- 
son, when there is neither shade nor coolness to 

.be found in the city, all the wealthy people leave 
18 



274 ODESSA. 

for their sea-side villas, or the watering-places of 
the Crimea. The handsomest street fronts the sea, 
with the Exchange at one end, the WoronzofF man- 
sion at the other, and the largest hotel, the HStel 
de Londres, in the middle. There we took up our 
temporary abode. 

Ever since its foundation Odessa has been a ren- 
dezvous for all races and professions. Not in the 
bazaars of Constantinople will one hear a greater 
variety of languages than among the hundred and 
fifty thousand people here assembled. For com- 
mercial purposes, as in the cities of the Levant, 
Italian is chiefly employed. The buildings are of 
stone, and the streets are in process of paving by 
an English company. Fresh water is brought from 
without, into the city, and filtered sea-water is used 
for many purposes. Fuel, also, is obtained from a 
distance, the barren steppe producing neither wood 
nor coal. 

It was still midsummer weather. During the 
heat of the day the city reposed, but the mornings 
and evenino;s were full of life and business. I did 
not wonder wlien I saw the fine shops with elab- 
orate painted signs, and as much French as Russ 
in the inscriptions, that the lady from the interior 



ODESSA. 275 

?ame here for "the modes." Most of the elegan- 
cies of Paris could be purchased in them, but at 
enhanced prices. In the Greek and Armenian ba- 
zaars the East was as well represented. Here w^ere 
the gold and silver work of Tiflis — the belts, the 
brooches, and the earrings ; the embroidered jack- 
ets of Circassia ; the silks and tissues of Broussa 
and Adrianople ; the slippers of Teheran, and even 
the shawls of Bokhara ; and whatever of rarity the 
Sultan's capital could send to its northern neighbor. 

Each class of inhabitants — nobles, merchants, 
Jews — has its own quarter and place of meeting. 
The only common ground seemed to be the caf^s, 
which were filled with . a varied crowd, smoking, 
talking, and sipping wines and coffee. Fruit shops 
abounded, with great heaps of melons at the doors, 
and, in some, pears which exactly resembled small, 
variegated squashes. 

One day, towards evening, we rode through and 
about the city, and noticed with interest that many 
customs and fashions, such as the mode of harness- 
ing horses, and the dress of coachmen, which had 
seemed so novel to us when we first stepped upon 
Russian soil at Abo, Finland, were just the same 
here in the extreme South. The dust rose in 



276 ODESSA. 

clouds at every turn of the wheels, and the acacias 
which with great pains have been planted along 
the wide, regular streets, were often as brown with 
it as the pavement. Nothing escaped its defilement 
but the church-towers, lifted above its ashen clouds. 
And how fine are some of these towers ! Critics 
may say what they will of Russian Church archi- 
tecture — call it " debased Byzantine," " Tartar- 
esque," or any other reproachful name which suits 
their whim — to my eye it is always pleasing and 
often very beautiful. Have the orders and styles 
of past ages exhausted the capabilities of form? 
Are changes and combinations necessarily mon- 
strosities ? " Debased," indeed ! I wish every 
city in America had a church as imposing as one 
w^e saw, scarcely finished, on the outskirts of the 
town, its lofty tower upholding a graceful, swelling 
dome that seemed poised as lightly and naturally 
as a golden lily on its stem ! And, more than 
domes and towers, I wish that from our churches 
as from those of Russia, pews were excluded, and 
the space within were free to the lowest as to the 
highest, to the beggar as to the millionaire — all 
equal in the presence of God. Then the sermon 
would be less, but the worship of the united con- 



ODESSA. 277 

gregation more, and the poor, who have greatest 
need of beauty and cheer, would not be banished 
from our finest churches as, in effect, they are 
now. 

Next to the churches, the most prominent build- 
ings were the great stone granaries, and the slaugh- 
ter-houses, where countless cattle — the gray herds 
of the steppe — are converted into tallow. On the 
outskirts were numerous small, rude dwellings, the 
abodes of the peasants who have flocked here to 
better their fortunes ; and in an open space was a 
Gypsy encampment. The men were doubtless ply- 
ing their various trades and arts within the city ; 
but the women and children hung about the tents, 
clothed in dirt and rags, yet some of them notice- 
ably handsome, with lithe, slender forms, and an 
untamable look in their black eyes, fascinating, yet 
fearful to behold. 

Just where the town met the steppe, we came 
upon a long line of carts from the far country, filled 
with wheat for the market. It was a characteristic 
and interesting sight, for formerly all the grain was 
brought to town in this way. The carts were sim- 
ilar to those of the Tartars, wholly of wood, with- 
out tire or nail. Each held perhaps twenty-five 



278 ODESSA. 

bushels of wheat, and was drawn by two oxen, 
gray, small, slow-moving cattle, attached to it by a 
harness of ropes. The axles would get on fire 
with the constant friction, were it not for frequent 
use of the vile grease carried in a little pot hanging 
beneath. 

But how shall I describe the men walking by the 
teams ? Never before had I so vivid an idea of a 
serf. Their faces were as dull as those of the bul- 
locks they drove, and they moved in the same leth- 
argic way. They seemed to be^ rather fair of hair 
and complexion, but were so begrimed with dust it 
was difficult to tell. Some were bareheaded, and 
all wore blouse and trousers of coarsest sacking, 
fastened about the middle with a rope or a strap of 
leather. Gloomily stupid, they looked as if they 
had never had an emotion in their lives. They 
had come, perhaps from the borders of Poland, 
perhaps from KiefF, for then the railway thither 
was unfinished. We looked after them as they 
plodded on, and commiserated their lot. Born of 
ancestors equally degraded, they had had nothing 
to waken thought or hope or ambition. The grain 
they carried was not their own, but belonged tc 
some landed proprietor who would pay them a 



ODESSA. 279 

mere pittance for the journey. They had travelled 
ten or twelve miles a day and then halted ; and 
while their cattle ate the grass by the road-side, 
they had made a meal of buckwheat porridge or rye 
bread, — for wheat they seldom taste, — and then 
slept under their carts. It was one of this class to 
whom Prince Demidoff refers in his account of 
travel through this region — a man ill, and without 
aid, in whose hut he sought refuge from a storm. 
" Ah ! " said the uncomplaining sufferer, when his 
visitor expressed pity for his condition, "peasants 
were not sent into this world for their own pleas- 
ure." 

Thank God ! the day of pleasure for peasants is 
coming ! The Czar has made them free men, and 
with the knowledge of their manhood their dor- 
mant faculties will awake. The elder men of this 
generation will not greatly change ; but their chil- 
dren will have education and gain wealth and 
power. They will send their own wheat to Odessa, 
%nd eat of the best of the land at home, and tales 
of the days of servitude will seem as far off as if 
they had been in another world ! 

Twilight was deepening as we returned to the 
hotel. It was the " Name's day " of the Czar — 



280 SEVASTOPOL. 

the festival day of Saint Alexander Nevski, whose 
name he bears, — and the principal streets and build- 
ings were brilliantly illuminated. The Exchange 
presented a beautiful appearance, with a motto in 
Russ blazing upon its front, and, beneath, the Em- 
Deror's cipher surmounted by a crown, and encircled 
with flame. The harvest moon shone over the sea ; 
the streets were filled with merry people ; and, re- 
membering the uplifting of the nation, we could 
have exclaiikied as heartily as any Russian of them 
a)], " Honor and long life to the Czar I " 



I 



OYER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFE 



OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFP 



Hush I heard you that horseman ? how madly he rides 1 
God pity the woman his coming that bides I 
Wild oaths wafted up on the wind as he passed, 
And a shade o'er the moonlight that moment was cast. 

What stirs there? No bugle the barracks have blown; 
No drum beats to quarters; yet, watching alone, 
While the howl of the dogs fills the midnight with fear, 
Some foe stealing by in the darkness, I hear. 

Has the Turk crossed the border? the Tartar come back 
With the vengeance of murder and fire in his track ? 
There 's a foot by the window ; a flame on the floor ; — 
And lo I 'twas the wind and the moonbeam — no more. 

TT^AREWELL to the sea. Our course was now 
across the country to the Austrian frontier. 
It was a fine morning in mid-September when 
we left Odessa by railway for Tirsopol, ninety 
miles distant, the farthest point to the west 
touched by the then unfinished road to KiefE 



284 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF, 

As soon as we had passed the town we entered 
upon the bare rolling plain burnt with the heat so 
as to be almost a desert in appearance, but which 
improved as we advanced till the soil looked dark 
and rich like that of our prairies. Occasional vil- 
lages of small houses with a large church in their 
midst; immense quantities of hay stacked on the 
plains, and of straw, showing where grain had been 
threshed ; groups of wind-mills on the higher 
swells of land, and the dwellings of the railway 
workmen near the track, half under ground so that 
at a distance they seemed to be all roof; these 
were the most striking features of the country be- 
tween Odessa and Tirsopol, where we arrived at a 
little past one ; — Tirsopol on the Dneister, which has 
a citadel to command the course of the river, and is 
one of the chief towns of Bessarabia. 

In Odessa we had secured an order for post- 
horses, and a comfortable carriage which came up 
with us on the train, and while the courier went to 
the post-house to make the necessary arrangements, 
we waited, at the railway station, and lunched, 
after the fashion of the country, on bread and tea. 
The great room was crowded with those who had 
just arrived and those who w^re to take the train 



OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 285 

a few hours later; for time had not yet become 
valuable here, and the railway was an object of 
curious interest to all. Companies of cartmen, 
such as we had seen near Odessa, and who had 
brought their grain to the station instead of taking 
the long journey to the port, peered in at the doors 
or walked about, examining the track and the cars. 
Polish Jews, with black robes and curling ear- 
locks, stood talking apart. A peasant father and 
mother sat in one corner, shy and observant, sur- 
rounded by their luggage in queer bags and bun- 
dles, and were very much disturbed because their 
children — three sturdy little boys with cropped 
hair and droll jackets covered with buttons — 
dared to run about and make a noise. Opposite 
them were an old and a young lady, evidently 
people of " quality," dressed in the Paris fashions 
of perhaps twenty years ago, and served by an ob- 
sequious maid whose attire was at least a quarter 
of a century behind their own. Tartar workmen 
were continually going through, leaving w^ide-open 
doors which the boys amused themselves, in spite 
of their mother, by shutting with a slam ; and in 
the middle of the room, undisturbed by the commo- 
tion, sat an Armenian with a shining black port- 



286 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF, 

manteau by his side, and paper and pencil in hia 
hand, doubtless summing up the gains of his last 
trading adventure. Near the door stood an open 
cask of fresh water with a long-handled wooden 
dipper floating on the top, and almost all who went 
in or out stopped to drink of it — the small boys 
taking such frequent and copious draughts that at 
length their father, overcoming his timidity, rose 
and dragging them away, ranged them in a forlorn 
row against the wall. 

These things entertained us until the carriage 
was brought to the door, with four horses har- 
nessed abreast and furnished with bells, and a Tar- 
tar driver. We set off at a furious gallop ; and 
what with the speed and the clouds of dust that 
enveloped us, we hardly had a glimpse of the town 
before it was left behind and we were on the great 
post-road, the thoroughfare across the steppe from 
the Black Sea to Poland. 

From eight to ten miles an hour is the ordinary 
rate of travel here. Then the station is reached 
and both horses and driver are changed. The 
number of miles, or versts, from one station to the 
next is marked on posts set up by the way- side and 
painted with the Imperial colors; and often, so 



OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 287 

level is the steppe, several of these posts are in 
view at once. There are no roads worthy of the 
name except these Government highways, and over 
them all the traffic and travel of the country must 
pass. At intervals we met carts filled with grain 
going to the town or returning after discharging 
their loads, the drivers counterparts of those we 
had previously seen. Great herds of cattle, and 
of sheep, both black and white, fed about; wind- 
mills were common ; and, as we went on, fields of 
Indian corn, pleasant to American eyes, varied the 
monotony of the broad level. 

Its monotony — - and yet the steppe is not with- 
out picturesque and striking features. Here, when 
the sun rises and disturbs the brooding mists, the 
forests and cities of the mirage shine along the hor- 
izon ; and his setting is often with such marshaling 
of clouds and splendor of colors as the hills never 
know. Here, too, are those strange monuments 
of forgotten ages, the funereal Mounds — the 
Khourgans of the Tartars — reared and conse- 
crated by a race long passed away ; up whose 
sides the shepherds climb to see their flocks, and, 
wrapped in their rude capotes, sleep, or drowsily 
watch the dark lines upon the silent plain. We 



288 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 

saw them at intervals, all the way from Odessa to 
the frontier — low, rounded banks dark against the 
sky — mysterious relics which neither the violence 
nor the storms of centuries have been able to de- 
stroy. 

The sun set in crimson glory, and the full moon 
rose, yellow, in the east. The evening was so 
pleasant that we concluded to prolong our journey 
to Kichineff, the capital of Bessarabia. A cool 
wind came with the dew, and we went rapidly on 
over an undulating country which at length be- 
came almost hilly, so that for the last stage we had 
six horses and a postillion. The custom here is to 
drive very fast up hill and very slow down. At 
every little declivity a post was seen bearing a 
board with a brake painted upon it, black on a 
white ground. 

It was nearly ten o'clock when we reached 
Kichineff and whirled through the wide streets to 
what the driver assured us was its best hotel. O, 
Frequenters of the " Clarendon" and the " Conti- 
nental ! " what would you have said to the inn of 
the Bessarabian capital? — a broad, low, white- 
washed house at the back of a paved yard, with 
the interior roughly finished — a few battered arti 



OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF, 289 

cles of furniture that looked as if for generations 
they might have been heir-looms in the owner's 
family — the long, empty room into which we were 
ushered lighted by a tallow candle set on a narrow 
mantel near the ceiling — and the inmates, from 
the host to the stable-boy, running about ; opening 
and shutting doors; issuing orders in various un- 
known tongues ; and at length bringing in the tea- 
urn and placing it, with meat and bread, upon the 
table before us. 

Our bed-rooms — just beyond, upon the first 
floor, with small windows but a few feet from the 
ground — were barer and plainer than the large 
apartment. The town was full of dogs, barking 
and howling like their kind at Constantinople. 
Now and then a horseman clattered down the 
street. Some servants' brawl or a riotous arrival 
kept up a tumult in the yard ; and the whole was 
so like an adventure in a story-book that it was 
long before I fell asleep. Then it was to wake and 
see if the clumsy stool was just where I had placed 
it, against the door ; and to question if the light on 
the wall was really nothing but the moon shining 
through the dim panes of the uncurtained window. 

We rose early, hoping to leave before the sun 

19 



290 OVER THE STEPPE TO KICHINEFF. 

was high, but in this we had reckoned without our 
host. The people appeared kind and wilHng to do 
everything in their power, but they had neither 
method nor sense of time. What a waking up 
there will be in that hotel, and in all Kichineff, 
when the railway train thunders through and trav- 
eller and native must be at the station to meet it ! 
Before six o'clock the cloth was laid in the large 
room for our breakfast. It was after eight when 
we sat down to the table. And all this time the 
waiter had been hurrying back and forth, bringing 
now a plate, now a knife and fork, now a cup of 
salt, and at each entrance he assured us that break- 
fast would be in " directly." One of our party 
asked for water-cresses ; whereupon landlord and 
waiter held a serious consultation which resulted in 
dispatching a boy to the market. Just as we were 
leaving the table he burst in with a flushed, trium- 
phant face, holding high a small bunch of the fresh 
leaves — proof of what determination can do even 
in Kichineff. 

At nine o'clock we drove out of the hotel yard, 
eager to view the capital and its ninety thousand 
inhabitants. 



KICHINEFF TO BELZL 



KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 



Here the white cattle graze that feed 

The Austrian Kaiser's towns, 
Close-watched by dogs alert to leap 

If but the herder frowns ; 
And here the shepherd tends his flock 

While the long days go by — 
Now couched beside them in the plain, 

Now on the khourgans hio-h. 
The plover calls across the steppe; 

The stork, with snowy breast, 
Flies northward to the kindly roof 

That holds her summer nest ; 
But nothing stirs his drowsy blood 

Unless a lamb should stray — 
Then woe to wolf or Gypsy thief 

That lurks beside the way. 

"XTTHAT did we see ? A vast town spread over 

uneven, almost hillj ground ; its wide streets 

lined with shabby, tliatched-roofed huts, and large, 

handsome buildings here and there — the cathedral, 



294 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 

the residence of tlie Russo-Greek Bishop, barracks 
and other modern structures pertaining to the Rus- 
sian rule — with walls brilliantly white, and domes 
and roofs painted green ; bazaars open to the street 
and full of all the common things required by such 
a population — boots, blouses, gay handkerchiefs, 
ropes, twine, coarse woolens and linens, and rude 
implements for the house and the field ; in the 
market, grapes, melons, apricots, pears, apples, and 
women sitting on the ground by a few vegetables, 
as in the East; aged crones, crouching in the doors, 
spinning from a distaff; groups of dirty -looking 
children, clad, like some of the women, in a single 
garment of hempen cloth ; soldiers in shining uni- 
forms ; Tartars wearing lambskin caps, coming and 
going with ox-teams loaded with hay and grain, 
and always lying at full length upon the empty 
carts ; lean, savage dogs running about ; such was 
Kichineff — an Arab town dropped in Russia. 

On the outskirts of the place women were stand- 
ing up to their knees in a pool of water, washing 
flax, while others were spreading it in the sun. 
Flax is one of the chief products of the country, 
and most of the clothing of the inhabitants, at least 
of the peasantiy, is of home manufacture. There 



KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 295 

were vineyards on the slopes and some of the hills 
were wooded. 

The uneven country about the small tributary 
of the Dneister on which Kichineff is built, soon 
subsided into the steppe which is here very fertile 
and, in its season, the birth-place of beautiful flow- 
ers, coming and going like those of our prairies ; 
and the haunt of cranes, plovers, and other free- 
winged tribes that love rich and boundless fields. 
No stones or rocks were seen ; no fences divided 
the domains. Solitary dwellings were rare, even 
near the highway. The post-stations were in vil- 
lages or had a few habitations gathered about them. 
They were low houses, the interiors poorly finished 
with wood, but the ceilings almost always painted 
in colors with some simple pattern, while the roofs 
were the universal thatch of coarse reeds or straw. 
In all the towns were wind-mills, and wells with 
long sweeps and buckets. 

Many of the inhabitants of this part of Bessara- 
bia are Tartars. So far from the sea, they did not 
emigrate when the country was ceded to Russia, as 
did multitudes on its borders ; but away from any 
centre of their Faith, and with the Greek church 
dominant, they are likely to grow yearly more lax 



296 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 

in tlie observance of their creed. The remainder 
are Russians, Jews, and representatives of all the 
neighbor races. 

The principal industry is the rearing of sheep 
and cattle ; indeed, Bessarabia is a grazing ground 
to which herds are often sent from afar. It sup- 
plies Austria with numerous cattle and cavalry 
horses, and sends great droves to the Odessa mar- 
ket. Some of the proprietors have a hundred 
thousand sheep. These are of a hardy breed, the 
fine merinos having been found unprofitable on 
account of the long housing they require in winter. 
Nothing is used to enrich the land, but it is cus- 
tomary to let it lie fallow every third year. The 
common fuel is dung mixed with chopped straw, 
and dried in the sun. 

Beyond Kichineff the country continued more 
undulating than that to the southeast. Occasion- 
ally we passed forest-clothed ridges with bright 
points of autumnal color gleaming in the green. 
Stretches of Indian corn alternated with levels cov- 
ered with stacks of hay. Great companies of cat- 
tle fed in the open spaces and unoccupied fields, 
and sometimes passed us on the road, driven by 



KICHINEFF TO BELZL 297 

mounted herders, and raising such a storm of dust 
that we could hardly see them, or even breathe till 
they had gone by. 

At Orgeief, a town on the brink of a smooth ex- 
panse like a New England meadow, we stopped for 
dinner. Entering the inn by a flight of steep stairs, 
we sat down in its one large room to wait for the 
promised cutlets and tea. Everywhere along the 
route we found poor, ill-matched crockery in use, 
but here its variety was remarkable, and we had 
nothing to do but to watch the waiter at his work. 
On a small, square table there were pink plates and 
blue plates ; a black and white sugar-bowl ; a 
purple milk-pitcher; and cups and saucers of every 
color possible to coarse earthenware. It w^as plain 
that contrast was what the waiter desired. He 
never put brown cups and saucers together, but 
always mated them with red or green, and when 
he had set them out in a half-circle, folding his 
arms he stood at a little distance and contemplated 
the rainbow effect with entire satisfaction. I was 
sorry not to be able to speak to him. I wanted to 
ask on what occult principle of taste he proceeded, 
and where the landlord got such an astonishing col- 
lection. But alas ! we had not a word in common, 



298 KICEINEFF 10 BELZI. 

and the history of that dinner-set I shall never 
know. 

All the afternoon a rolling country ; a wide, 
dusty road ; and corn and hay and cattle. At five 
o'clock we came to the station at the little hamlet 
of Baretchsky and found that the stables were 
empty, and we must wait for horses to come in and 
feed before we could go on. On either side of the 
post-house were several small, thatched dwellings, 
half sunk in the ground, and before it the plain 
sloped to a narrow river. A man clad in the uni- 
versal blouse and trousers of tow-cloth lazily led 
away the horses, and as lazily returned with a pot 
of offensive grease which he applied to the car- 
riage-wheels with his fingers, wiping them, as he 
passed back into the stable yard, on a horse's tail ! 
Little children were playing about with only a tow 
shirt on, while the boys above seven or eight years 
old were habited exactly like the men. The dust 
lay on the ground like a bed of fine ashes, and the 
children were striking it with a stick and making it 
fly high in the air ; and playing with tame turkeys, 
and pigeons with feathered legs — both so brown 
with dust that it was impossible to teU the color of 
their plumage. 



KICHINEFF TO BELZL 299 

A peddler came trudging up the road with his 
pack on his back, and his arrival made quite an ex- 
citement among the women. They appeared at 
the cellar-like doors of the houses, and, with wha 
seemed like words of welcome, invited him to 
enter. He was apparently an Armenian, and a 
shrewd, good-humored fellow to whom bargaining 
was second nature. Nodding graciously, and say- 
ing something equivalent, I fancy, to " all in good 
time, ladies," he vanished under the first doorway. 

As we walked about, the mistress of the adjoin- 
ing house which was thatched and low, but, unlike 
the rest, entirely above ground, smiled and beck 
oned us to come in. She had a fair complexion 
with sunny blue eyes, and her dress was a dark 
woolen petticoat, with a short linen wrapper and 
silver earrings. Entering, we found a large room 
with a degree of comfort which we had not ex- 
pected. In one corner was a broad, covered bench, 
on which quilts were piled, and which served for a 
bed. There were wooden stools and a table ; a 
coarse rug was spread on the floor, and at the far- 
ther end was a fireplace over which kettles and a 
few dishes were set with some regard to order. 

But the attraction of the place, and that wliicli 



300 KICHINEFF TO BELZI. 

the proud young mother had called us to see, was 
a tiny baby asleep in his liulka, — a cradle like a 
light wooden tray, suspended by lists from the 
ceiling. As if he had been a prince she lifted the 
blanket that we might see his face, and rocked his 
hanging nest gently to and fro when he moved 
with a faint cry. It was the Bessarabian poem of 
" Philip, my king ! " 

In came the peddler, followed by three or four 
women eager to trade. With an air as bland and 
patronizing as that of his Scotch brother delineated 
by Wilkie, he helped himself to a stool, and pro- 
ceeded leisurely to unfold his treasures, — bright 
handkerchiefs ; necklaces of glass and coral beads ; 
earrings ; rolls of chintz and ribbon ; and a dozen 
other things charming to feminine beholders. Chris- 
tian or Mohammedan. The blue-eyed woman 
fixed, at once, upon a string of beads for her baby, 
and began to bargain for it, holding it on her fin 
gers ; while the rest picked up each article as he 
laid it down, and admired and questioned and dis- 
cussed until there was such a noise and excitement 
in the low room that, with a trifling gift to the 
mother for baby's necklace, we slipoed away. 

The sun was setting in gorgeous clouds, and the 



KICEINEFF TO BELZI. 301 

whole plain shone with a momentary splendor 
This was the hour for watering the herds. Bellow- 
ing and filling the air with dust ; driven by men on 
horseback carrying heavy whips, and by fierce 
dogs that with bark and bite at once seized upon a 
stray ox and forced him back into the drove, across 
the fields they went to the river ; a moving mass 
of gray ; crowding past each other in their haste ; 
plunging to the bank with wild eyes and flaring 
nostrils, and drinking as if they would drain the 
stream to its source. 

Meanwhile the expected horses had returned ; 
and at eight o'clock, with no supper but some meat 
and bread we had brought in a basket from Or- 
geief, we resumed our journey. 

Again a cool, dewy evening, and the harvest 
moon undimmed by a cloud. We went on without 
incident and reached the next station a little before 
ten o'clock, meaning to spend the night ; but there 
was no inn, and the post-house had only hard 
benches and black bread to offer us, so we resolved 
to prolong our ride to Belzi, the largest town that 
remained between us and the frontier. At eleven 
o'clock we were off" with a fresh team, and a driver 
wrapped in sheep-skins against the night air. A.\ 



302 KICHINEFF TO BELZL 

that hour tlie country was still, and seemed almost 
uninhabited. There were neither herds nor trav- 
ellers to obstruct the road, and it was not long after 
midnight when we reached Belzi and alighted at 
the door of its Armenian inn. Disrobing at night 
does not seem to be the fashion in Bessarabia. We 
found the people asleep, but in their usual dress, 
and ready, as soon as they were waked, to serve 
us. There was a hospitality in their greeting very 
grateful to tired, chilled, belated comers. In a lit- 
tle while they gave us tea, and made up clean beds 
for us on their straw-cushioned sofas, where, oblivi- 
ous of dogs and all other disturbances, we slept 
soundly till late the next morning. 



THE FRONTIEIL 



THE FRONTIER. 



O the glorious purple line 

Of the mountains lifted along the west I 
Bright, in the sun, their summits shine ; 

Dark, in the shade, their valleys rest. 
Cossack and Tartar may hold the plains, 

And the rivers that creep to a tideless sea; 
Mine be the heights where the eagle reigns, 

And cataracts thunder, and winds blow free! 

Not for the steppe, with its desert sheen, 

From Austria's border to China's wall, 
Would I give the upland pasture's green — 

The beech-tree's shadow — the brooklet's fall. 
Vanish, O weary, mournful Level 1 

Welcome, O Wind my brow that fans I 
In the splendor of earth again I revel. 

Greeting the purple Carpathians 1 



W 



E let Belzi take its own time. It was ten 
o'clock when we left the inn, our lunch- 
basket filled with meat and bread against the exi- 

20 



306 THE FRONTIER. 

gencies of the day. Belzi lies in a low plain sur- 
rounded by hills, and is like KichinefF in appearance, 
only smaller and poorer. 

Still a rolling country with corn, and hay, and 
cattle. At one place we counted nearly a hundred 
cows feeding together by the road- side. All day 
the monumental mounds were seen lying along the 
horizon, to the south. Most of the people we met 
appeared to be of Tartar race, and the women, 
though always with uncovered faces, seemed shy 
and timid. At one place, where we waited for 
horses, we saw several at work with flax which lay, 
as about most of the houses, in bundles upon the 
roof, and on the grass, near at hand. Standing at 
a little distance, we watched them with interest ; 
but as soon as they saw they were observed, they 
fled into the house, and immediately two men came 
out, attended by a huge dog, and confronted us 
with angry looks and warning gestures, so that we 
were glad when the carriage came to take us from 
their disagreeable neighborhood. 

Now and then we passed stubble fields where 
wheat had grown. The corn raised here is little 
exported, but, ground into coarse meal and cooked 
as porridge, it is a staple article of food for the 
inhabitants. 




PEASANT OF THE POLISH BORDER. 



THE FRONTIER. 307 

As we journeyed north the air became percepti- 
dIj" cooler. The country was more broken, and in 
the hollows of the hills were little lakes that gave 
variety to the landscape. In the afternoon, at a 
lonely post-station, we waited again for horses, and, 
to pass the time, walked back to the stable-yard. 
It was surrounded by a high fence, a kind of stock- 
ade. Surly dogs followed the grooms about, and 
the entire establishment had a dreary, prison-like 
appearance. The apartments of the keeper are 
always in the rear of the house, looking upon the 
yard. The doors were open, and as we went by 
we saw the two forlorn rooms where eight or ten 
people had their abode. In one a small fire of 
brushwood burned in the chimney with a pot hang- 
ing over it in which porridge was cooking ; while a 
baby, rolled in a bit of brown flannel, — a bright- 
eyed little thing crowing at the flame, — lay on a 
cushion near by. A pile of bedding and clothing 
in one corner, two or three rough benches, a few 
wooden dishes and a tea urn made up the furniture. 

Seeking for something more agreeable than this 
barren place, we went a little way up the road to 
where a field of Indian corn rustled in the wind, 
and I could not resist the temptation to pluck an 



308 THE FRONTIER. 

ear and taste the sweet, yellow kernels so suggest- 
ive of home. Truly, beauty is everywhere, even 
under the shadow of a Bessarabian post-house. 
Growing on the edge of the corn-field were clusters 
of golden immortelles, and delicate purple flowers 
which I had never seen elsewhere. 

There was no large village with an inn where 
we could comfortably spend the night, so again we 
rode until a late hour, and then halted at a station 
whose hard, leather-covered benches made sitting 
up or walking about preferable to lying down. We 
were off with the dawn, having first, outside the 
door, washed our faces after the Oriental manner, 
with water poured from a dipper into the hands. 

The morning was cool and clear like those of 
New England in late September, and we soon 
accomplished the fifteen miles to the next station. 
There an old woman, wrapped in a sheep-skin coat, 
admitted us and furnished us with an urn for mak- 
ing tea and a small bowl in w^hich to drink it, and 
with much merriment we breakfasted upon what 
remained of the lunch we had brought from Belzi. 
Just as we drove away from the house we saw, 
by the side of the road, a wagoner w^ho was making 
a pudding of corn meal in an iron pot, over a fir^ 



THE FRONTIER. 309 

kindled on the ground. His cart was close at 
hand and beyond it his oxen were feeding. Hav- 
ing made his pudding very stiff, he poured it out 
into a ' cloth spread on the grass and tied it up 
for carrying. Then with his wooden spoon he 
scraped the pot, eating the morsels, and was still 
intent upon it when a turn in the road hid him 
from our view. 

Through this region, most of the houses were 
thatched, and great herds of sheep and cattle were 
common ; but it was soon evident that we were 
coming into a more populous country, and among a 
different people. We passed numerous carts filled 
with grain and vegetables and melons, sometimes 
driven by men, sometimes by women. Companies 
of three or four were walking, carrying fowls under 
their arms, or having a bag of striped cloth over 
their shoulders, containing something to sell. The 
dress of the women was a long-sleeved garment of 
coarse white linen, reaching just below the knees. 
It was quite open at the neck, and about the hems 
and bands there was an ornamental stitch of colored 
worsteds. Instead of a petticoat, a striped woolen 
blanket, perhaps two yards in length and half as 
much in breadth, was folded round the figure, 



310 THE FRONTIER. 

beginning under the right arm and ending under 
the left — a single thickness at the back, and 
double in front. A sash or belt of ornamented 
leather confined it at the waist, and the* outer 
lower corner, with careless grace, was caught up 
to the belt again. On the head was a high cov- 
ering of white linen, somewhat resembling that 
worn bj the women of Bethlehem, and earrings 
and a necklace of beads or coins completed the 
attire. With their bare, brown, well-shaped legs 
and feet; their white teeth, bright eyes, free 
motions, and neat, effective dress, they made very 
pleasing, picturesque groups. The men, clad in 
homespun linen, and perhaps with a sheep-skin 
jacket over the blouse, were as tidy as the women. 
These were the Moldavians of the border. 

The country became more broken and wooded ; 
the peasant travellers more numerous ; and lo ! we 
were at Novoselitza and the Frontier ! 

The unusual stir among the inhabitants was soon 
explained. It was fair and market-day in the town, 
and several thousand people were assembled on the 
green. Making our way through their midst, we 
alighted at the hotel. It was an ill-constructed, 
unfurnished building, but after the small, comfortless 



THE FRONTIER. 311 

post-houses with their wretched fare, its high sunny 
rooms were palatial, and we thought its rusks and 
coffee delicious, although they did bring us the 
boiled milk in an iron kettle and set it on the floor 
beside the table. 

While our passports were being copied we walked 
out to see the fair. The majority of the people 
were the same in dress and appearance as those we 
had passed on the way. Piled up on the ground, 
or exposed in booths and on benches, were vegeta- 
bles, melons, butter and curds, pottery, wooden 
dishes, rock salt, linen and woolen cloths of home 
weaving, colored yarns, beads, belts, sashes, and 
whatever else was produced or required by this 
primitive people. All seemed good-humored over 
their traffic, and it was evident that many a flirta- 
tion was going on among the young men and mai- 
dens whose eyes and costumes had perhaps come 
down to them from the ancient Dacians. 

The last arrangements were completed ; our 
passports were returned to us ; the courier an- 
nounced that all was in readiness for our depart- 
ure. Half glad and half sorry, we took the car- 
riage once more, and, crossing the barriers between 
the guard-houses of the two nations, entered Galicia 
and Austria. 



312 TEE FRONTIER. 

A charming ride across the Bukovina — the 
*' Beech country" — with the Carpathians in sight 
to the southwest (how enchanting was their wavy 
line after the long level of the steppes !) ; the pas- 
sage of the Pruth ; the ascent of the hill to pictu- 
resque Czernowitz, whose Latin crosses glittered in 
the sun ; and at the door of the " Hotel Adler '* 
we stepped from the vehicle which had conveyed 
us so far, and dismissing the driver, bid a last fare- 
well to Russia. 



THE CZAR 



THE CZAR. 



Now who is he with lofty mien 

That down the street doth ride? — 

Nor bugle's note, nor banner's sheen, 
To tell of power or pride. 

His brow no kingly crown displays ; 

His breast no jeweled star ; 
Yet Russ and Tartar reverent gaze — 

The Czar 1 God save the Czar 1 

"TT was at Yalta that, for the first time in his own 
dominions, we saw the Czar — a man whose 
stately beauty would make him anywhere a mark 
for admiration, and whose noble career as Emperor 
entitles him to the world's regard. In his appear- 
ance there is nothing of the fierce assumption of 
superiority which belongs to his uncle, the sove- 
reign of Prussia, nor yet of the unbending hauteur 
by which all the portraits of the Emperor Nicholas 
are characterized; but rather dignity allied to a 



316 THE CZAR. 

tender earnestness which becomes him as the Father 
of his People. 

Think of his position ! A monarch with almost 
irresponsible power over seventy millions of men ; 
whose words echo as law from the Frozen Cape to 
Mount Ararat, and from the Carpathians to the Sea 
of Japan ; and on whose individual will, more than 
on that of any other man, hang the destinies of 
the race. 

With the clear thought and steady purpose of his 
German blood, and the faith which inheres in the 
Slavonic, he applied himself to his tasks. Doubt- 
less during the dark days of the Crimean war the 
pain and peril of Russia had sunk into his heart, 
and when he came to rule over the waiting millions 
it was with sympathy for their trials, with apprecia- 
tion of their needs and difficulties, and with the 
resolve, God helping him, to lighten their burdens. 
He knew the time was ripe for the victories of 
peace, and that the age demands kingliness of kings. 
The Empress, of the Ducal House of Hesse-Darm- 
Btadt, with an exalted standard for the court and 
the nation, was his unfailing support and adviser. 
He gathered about him the ablest men of the land, 
and consulted with them as to the great measure he 



THE CZAR. 317 

proposed — the Freedom of the Serfs. A thousand 
obstacles intervened through the bitter opposition 
of a part of the aristocracy, but quietly and firmly 
ne met and overcame them. Five years after his 
accession he proclaimed the Act of Emancipation — 
glorious deed which converted thirty millions of 
chattels into men ! And each one of them received 
it as joyfully and as personally as if he had taken 
him by the hand and said, " To you, Ivan," or " To 
you, Fedor, I give the right to be your own lord 
and master ; to marry, to possess land, to trade, 
and to come and go as may suit your interest and 
desire." Thus he has intensified, a hundredfold, 
the instinctive worship of the Russian for his Czar ; 
he has given to each peasant the devotion of a 
Komisaroff"; and made the new hope and courage 
and manhood he has inspired the surest foundation 
for his throne in peace, and its mightiest bulwark 
in war. 

To this event succeeded others only less impor- 
tant. Desirable changes were initiated in ecclesias- 
tical matters. Foundations were laid for a system 
of universal education. Open courts with trials by 
jury were instituted. Provincial assemblies were 
established. The bribery and corruption of the 



818 THE CZAR. 

civil service were checked, and the petty espionage 
which had often marked it was discountenanced. 

Everything has been done to foster and facilitate 
the trade of the Empire. Nearly ten thousand 
miles of railway have been finished or are now 
building, carrying life and progress into remote 
districts ; bringing the mines and the grain regions 
near to the great marts ; and binding together the 
different governments with the strong bond of com- 
mon interests. 

Travelling through an unexplored country, the 
pioneer must clear his way as he proceeds. He 
cannot always choose at once the most desirable 
path, because he must fell the trees in order to see 
what lies beyond ; he must ford the streams to tell 
where it is safest to cross ; he must climb the hills 
to learn which summit slopes gentlest to the farther 
plain. So the Czar, with such untried forces to 
measure and control, such impediments to remove, 
and such diverse and jarring interests to consult, 
must often have walked in uncertainty, and found 
deviations and apparent retrogressions inevitable. 
But " Forward ! " is blazoned on his banner, and 
those who understand him best know that difficul- 
ties only incite him to fresh endeavors. 




ALEXANDER II. 



THE CZAR. 319 

One of the most impressive services of the Rus- 
sian Church is that where the priest, followed by 
his deacons and readers, all in gorgeous robes, 
issues from the royal doors, and, advancing to the 
centre of the church, intones a solemn prayer foi 
the safety and well-being of the Emperor, while the 
choir take up the last words and chant them to a 
noble strain. Let every soul throughout his do- 
minions echo that prayer — the Muscovite of vary- 
ing Faith ; the Tartar in his mosque ; the Georgian 
under the shadow of Kasbek ; the Kirghiz and Kal- 
muck in their felt-covered tents ; the Ostiak and the 
Samoiede by northern seas ; nay, the Pole beneath 
the glitter of the Latin cross — for, so far as human 
power can avail, the safety of the Emperor means 
security and justice and progress for all. 

Humanity is one. We also, of the Republic 
over the sea, honor the name and pray for the 
preservation of the Czar Alexander. 

Hail to the Czar Alexander I 

Hail to the Prince of the Free I 
Not to the proud would lie pander; 
Truer and nobler and grander 

Than Macedon's hero is he, 
Alexander I 



320 THE CZAR. 

Listen ! how melodies rural 

Freight every wind with his praise I 
Give him the golden crown mural 1 — 
First from the seas to the Oural 
Liberty's flag to upraise, 
Alexander 1 

Greatest is not the Czar Peter; 

(Sound it, O Bells, from each steeple I) 
No, for his fame will be fleeter; 
No, for the homage is sweeter 

Paid to the Czar of the People, 
Alexander 1 

Ah 1 when the Muscovite story 

Ages to ages shall tell, 
Still will the patriarchs hoary 
Cry, " 'twas the Czar of our glory. 

He who loved Russians so well, 
Alexander 1 " 

God be his shield and defender I 
Keep him from sorrow afar ! 

Then, when his life he shall render, 

Fold in eternity's splendor 
Russia's redeemer, the Czar 
Alexander 1 



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